I always said I would be Cool Mom. Cool Mom is laid back, doesn’t let the little stuff get to her, has a plan and sticks to it without drama, without ruffling of feathers and sweating of pits. Cool Mom drops The Kid off with a kiss and confidence and goes about her day. Cool Mom is sure of what she does, that it is right and good.

I AM NOT COOL MOM.

The only cool, laid-back thing about my parenting these days is my diaper bag, an emblem of my pre-kid ideas about identity and independence. It’s filled with wipes and onesies and stained with spit-up now, having weathered the initial storms of actual, not theoretical, motherhood. Kind of like me.

The other day I had the opportunity to drop TK off at a church-sponsored nursery so that I could interact with other mothers. I wheeled the Graco up to the door as TK slurped on his hand. The woman accepting child deposits, forgive me, looked like she had seen better days. And it looked like those days had included lots of smoking and more than a few drinks. She hacked into her hand and I was reasonably certain that part of her lung had come up. I looked down at TK, still happily slurping, and I considered just turning around and running. She didn’t even use hand sanitizer, for God’s sake! TK grinned up at me and my worrying ways. I glanced around frantically, searching for the least conspicuous exit and ruing that the only option out was the door through which I entered. The woman ahead of me pushed her screaming toddler through the door, the line moved forward, and there we were: one happy baby and one anxious mother.

I must have had A Look on my face (I usually do), because the Child Taker quickly piped up, “I’m not sick. I’ve been to the doctor.” “Allergies?” I asked hopefully. “It’s just some scar tissue on my esophagus,” she replied. Gross, I thought. And thanks for that image. I reluctantly handed TK over and he was promptly dropped into a swing. Walking away, I felt tears spring to my eyes and I ducked into the nearest bathroom to let them flow.

So not Cool Mom.

When I picked him up an eternity (hour) later, TK was in the same swing. He had spit-up on the front of his super-cute outfit. But he was, as The Husband would say, fine. He placed his head on my shoulder and I wondered what stories he would tell me if he could, what had happened in my absence. After I placed him in his carrier, he looked up at me expectantly with a  “What next, Mommy?” look. “A stiff drink and a Xanax chaser,” I wanted to say.

Yesterday we went to a play group, and before we left TK sat in his carrier on the counter while I rushed around, gathering our gear. “Do I have everything?” I asked him in my perpetual narration, and I glanced over to see him grin at me. As if to acknowledge my craziness and respond with his own coolness, so not reflective of me. And I realized that’s okay. I don’t have to be Cool Mom.

Because he looked just like his dad.