Umm...am I not cool?

Hello Dear Friends of the blog who are at the edge of your seats wondering what delightful word treats I have for you next.
This time it's about boys. And I have 3 of them, and a husband, a brother, 2 brothers in law, and a father in law. My mother in law and I are the only of the female brand in our family and we like to refer to ourselves as the Queen Mum and Lady D (which is another story that almost got me into trouble...later for that one).
Here we go; we live in a neighborhood thick with little boys (because having them rampant in our family wasn't enough apparently). So my oldest has a group of buddies over which is pretty typical and they are running around playing in the back yard. Usually when the kids have friends over and it's lunch time, I do a head count and make extra whatever we are having for whoever is nearby playing.
My son had recently discovered the absolute joy of calling friends and brothers, 'Dude'. (they grow up so fast!) So all the buddies are outside and I'm hearing, "Dude," this and "Dude" that. Now I have been calling the lads 'Gang'. As in, 'Hey Gang, is anybody hungry?" or "Be careful by the pool, Gang", or "Time to go home, Gang"; you get the picture.
On this particular day, understanding the need for the 'cool factor' of mom-hood, I went out and announced, "Hey, Dudes, everybody ready for some dinosaur chicken?"
Ummm, ok, picture 7 boys, 11 and under running around my yard playing baseball and suddenly stop like one of them had just discovered that they have to go home and play with a sister. A dead stop by all 7! Finally, a brave soul (and the oldest soul), Michael, pipes up and says, 'Uh, Mom's don't say Dude.'
Oh the shame of it! Imagine if you will the cool meter plunging to the depths of ridicule for my dear beloved sons at the disgrace of their mother making the deepest of vocabulary faux paus in front of the neighborhood friends. Yikes, make that Double Yikes.
So I quickly tried to recover by saying, "Michael, good to know. Thanks for straightening that out. I'd hate to be known as the mom who is waaayyyy uncool. Is there anything else that mom's don't say?" Michael said, "no, that's it." So we all go in and have lunch and they headed back outside to play. But then Michael pops back in. Uh-oh! He says, "Mrs. Hershey, thanks for lunch. And we really like it when you call us Gang".
Cool again!