Believe it or not, your baby will be a tween one day. Oh, it’s coming. My son, yes, my first born child, my baby, is 11. He’s a sweetheart, but growing up fast. And I’m stuck in mommy denial. For starters, we don’t exactly speak the same language. I grew up in Texas spouting Valley Girl 80’s lingo. If you grew up in the 80’s or even 90’s, these phrases are probably familiar to you. (Like totally familiar.)

Awesome

Whatever

Like TOTALLY

Oh my G*d

Chill out

Crackin’ up

Not even

So familiar, you probably, like totally still use them every day, to your kids’ dismay. These less popular slang phrases have faded away thankfully, like acid wash mom jeans:

Radical

Barf me out

Eat my shorts

Gnarly

Tubular

According to my tween son, I’ve been told that I’m a great mom, but it’s evident (especially when I’m dancing in the kitchen to a Bananarama song, that I’m uncool). It is what it is. And to make it worse, there are new versions of slang words kids use now, just in case we need justification for our perpetual un-coolness level.

So, like a typical mom of a tween, I’ve started jotting down “cool phrases” and have a short list of translations. This is something I created for my own mommy sanity level. Be careful not to incorporate these words into your everyday vocabulary when talking to your tween, which can make it even worse. It makes it look like you’re trying too hard. (Think Amy Poehler in Mean Girls.) Just use it as a reference guide and please, by all means, add your own phrases in the comments section. We can use all the help we can get!

(Just to clarify, the phrases to the left are OUT!)

Whatever – Whatevs

Chill out – Chillax

Crackin’ up – Lol

Oh my G*d – OMG

Weird – Wack

Awesome – Sick

Cool – Phat

Adorable – Adorbs

Dude – Dawg

All right – Aiight

Bu-bye – Peace out

Rock it – Own it

Psyched – Stoked

Fabulous – Fashizzle

Done – O-v-e-r

Peace out, dawgs!