11-25-02 Side Streets, Kimra Traynor Herb
An Embarrassing Mom
By Kimra Traynor Herb
IPS Features
I have never
been what you could call a "low profile chick." I like bright colors.
I am loud. I enjoy wearing sparkly jewelry and crazy hats. My son pointed out to
me one day that some could call me an "embarrassing mom." This is what
he told me: "My friend J.D. said to me, 'the thing that is cool about your
mom is that she never cares what anyone thinks about her; no matter what she
does.'" My son finished by saying, "I guess you COULD call that a
compliment."
Well, you know,
I would call that a compliment. I usually don't care what people think about
me..... not anymore. After a childhood and adolescence trying so hard to fit in
with the "crowd" and never quite making the grade, I have settled into
the knowledge that I am a unique and loudly different human being from the
"in crowd"- and that is okay. But sometimes I forget that my kids
might see it different. They are right there, right in the stream of trying to
blend into the crowd when here comes their red-headed, sequin wearing mama in a
crazy Christmas hat. Sometimes, I think it can be a lot to handle.
Last week the
boys had their soccer pictures taken at the elementary school. My husband, as
the coach for all three boys, had his hands full running around and posing for
picture after picture. My job? To fill out the order forms and try to stay out
of trouble. Easy work for most moms; but as it turned out, too much for me to
handle. First of all, I absolutely cannot be in public and not talk. So I
immediately found a parent to converse with; sharing tales of selling homes and
refrigerators filled with magnets and pictures. (Believe me, there was a
connection to this conversation- I just have forgotten what it was.) I was
behaving myself pretty well; my forms were filled out in black pen per the
request of the photographers, and all three boys were wearing the appropriate
clothing. Pretty good for a Saturday morning at eight a.m. And then it happened.
I noticed that my oldest son had left his jeans and giant tennis shoes sitting
right in the traffic of crowds, and I bent down to snatch up the stuff and get
it out of the way. It was that movement that propelled my body against the wall,
the light switch..... turning off all the lights in the gym.
"OKAY YOU
KIDS, STOP PLAYING WITH THE LIGHTS!" A voice bellowed into the darkness.
I quickly
fumbled around and switched the lights back on. Nothing happened.
"It wasn't
a kid," another voice shouted, "IT WAS A MOM!"
I vainly
switched the switch back and forth in an effort to get the lights back on.
Nothing.
"It wasn't
just a MOM," I heard another voice, still unfamiliar, shout, "IT
WAS KIMRA!"
Oh great. I had
been discovered. It turned out that the lights, which were mercury, had to cool
down completely from being turned off to begin the re-illumination process.
Which ended up costing the morning something like fifteen to twenty minutes. A
very stern looking woman, most likely associated with either the soccer club or
the photography studio came up to the light switch and whipped out a roll of
duct tape, securing the switches on and covering them with tape. She glared at
me and said, "Well, let's see if this can keep PEOPLE from turning out the
lights."
"I didn't
do it on purpose." I squeaked, mortified. As the lights were slowly, slowly
coming up, everyone was staring at me. My husband looked at me from across the
room but made no move to claim me; the errant light switcher offer. My boys were
busy looking the other way and pretending that the woman named Kimra, the woman
who would do such a thing, was in no way associated with them.
It can't be easy
for them, having a mom like me. Low profile I will never be; but I hope that if
they can survive the embarrassment of enduring my gllitzy outfits and loud
mouth, they will realize one fine day that it is okay to be different, and that
perhaps, just maybe, they are in some small way grateful to me for having shown
them first hand that who wants to be part of the mainstream anyway? Because when
the lights finally come back up, no one is going to remember the countless moms
in their blue jeans and sweatshirts, but someone just MIGHT remember the offbeat
mom dressed in leather who managed to single-handedly put a stop to a whole
morning of productivity.