Just because I'm a mother doesn't mean I can't rock out to Justin Timberlake.

Tonight in an attempt to entertain the children (and distract them from trying to eat Charming's late evening dinner themselves), I told the girlies we'd have a "dancing party". I flipped through my cd album, thinking to find some generic kiddie music (you know, the kind with Barney type drums, trumpets, and whistles in the background while some nasal voice sings about all the colors of the rainbow etc.), when my eyes paused on a cd I have long ago stopped listening to. Almost immediately my heart rate accelerated as memories flashed through my mind of the distant past and I contemplated the possibilities of the immediate future. I dropped the cd in and pushed play.

And I totally rocked out to N'sync.

I'm not talking about doing the twist or skipping through Ring Around the Rosie with my children. I'm talking about some serious booty-shaking, body-waving, come hither moves that have been sleeping dormant for years. Well tonight my "moves" sat right up out of bed, stretched and yawned, and headed out the door to get a PhD in..... nevermind.

I have never been ashamed to admit that I was an avid N'sync fan back in the day. My zeal for the group and all things teeny-bopper stretched as far as I was physically and legally aloud to go considering my financial situation, teenage status, and moral upbringing. (Just the sheer hottness of Taylor Hanson (from, you know--Hanson), prompted me to break up with a boyfriend because he just didn't "do it for me" the same way Taylor did....) It's hard to believe, but I probably listened to the same eight cd's during a five year period, and nothing else. I wanted nothing more and I was blissfully happy.

I believe deep down in every girl's soul there is a part of her that wants to break free and dance to The Backstreet Boys, or N'sync, or New Kids on the Block, or Donny Osmond--or whatever. Every generation has their celebrity boy toys. Nowadays girls freak out when Zac Efron busts out a note (who wouldn't with that constant, intense stare?), and my mom will break out "the swim", or worse--"the pony" when she hears the Osmonds. For years she has embarrassed me with her unabashed dance moves in her attempt to remember her youth and feel a little crazy and free again. My sisters and I would always cry with dismay to "Oh my gosh stop Mom, what are you DOING?!?!".

It was like a slap in the face tonight when I experienced the exact same thing. I thought I was young enough to still pass as cool when I danced--but to my children I am their mother, despite the fact that I am only twenty-five, and apparently they would like me to retain that title with dignity. Buttercup didn't like it. She said, "No Mama, don't do THAT!" (I think even Alex was a bit chagrined--I noticed how he tried to slyly close all the blinds so that the neighbors wouldn't see...) It was in that moment that I remembered my own mother dancing her heart out, kicking her feet around the room at odd angles to "The Pony", and I felt a stronger kinship with her that ever before. Yes, I still shudder a little when I picture her dancing away in the kitchen (sorry, Mom), but I know now where she's coming from, that she was young once--and still is in a lot of ways.

So bring on the music!!! HRH and Jaction, I know you'd be up for a good dance fest. Call all the girls and we'll move out all the furniture (like we did in college) and invite everyone in the building to stomp it out to Michael Jackson. If that can't be arranged, I'd settle for just my four sisters, in the kitchen and bottling tomatoes as we rock out to High School Musical or whatever. Just make sure it's a hott guy singing. (Or in Michael Jackson's case, a former hott guy.)