Effects of having a cool family

It's hard to have a cool family sometimes. For example, I try not to always tell Matthew how cool he is, but it slips out. Take, for example, this one instance.
Matthew is being cool.
"Matthew, you are so cool," I say. It slips. I cover my mouth quickly and turn away.
"What did you say?" he asks innocently.
I try to make it up. "I said it's kind of cool in here," I say waving my hand around in the air. "This weather, phew." I blow the air out of my mouth sounding like a beached whale.
Matthew nods strangely and turns away.
I sigh in relief.
I tell you it's hard.

Then there's Mary. I am fixing her hair for church. She has asked for pigtails. She always asks for pigtails. I am in the middle of trying to not scream at that tiny little hair scrunchy that looks like it's made for barbies, not for two-year olds.
"Mommy, I still love you," she says.
"That's nice honey." I say.
"But sometimes I'm mad at you."
"Oh."
"But I still love you."
"I still love you." Mary grabs my head with one arm and hugs it tight. Her pink bow wiggles and I have to check it again to make sure it hasn't fallen out.

Then, there's Matthew again.
One night I asked him if he would love me if I gained a lot of weight. Just wanted to know, ok?
"Of course," he says.
"Really?" I asked, feeling the love for him start all over again.
"Yes. Becky, it's like this. If you could have a small delicious piece of chocolate cake or a much bigger piece of the same cake, which one would you want?"
I am trying to follow.
"There'd just be more of you to love," he says.
"That's so nice," I say.
Matthew smiles, proud of himself for making me feel better.
I hug him.

And Nathan just loves pumps and flashlights and clips that we use for our chips. He doesn't like to play with anything else sometimes. We find the pump missing from our storage closet and every time we put it on top of the fridge, he pushes a chair over and gets it down when we're not looking. He is a little bit of a strange boy in that respect, but I think he's extremely creative. We have determined not to buy him toys for Christmas, but a pump and a flashlight all his own, and maybe those tongs at Aunt Melissa's house that he can't set down. Matthew and I take extra creative measures to hide pumps, flashlights, clips, tongs, and other strange things whenever we have to get them out to use them. We put them back right away.

So it's kind of tough having a cool family, but I'm getting the hang of it.