Super Family

You don’t know it yet, but you are reading the blog of a superhero.

Although I am not the most powerful superhero. Not by a long shot. I’m not even the most powerful superhero in my own house! That’s because my four-year-old daughter has decided we are a family of superheroes. And of course, she is the most powerful superhero among us, because it’s her story and she makes the decisions. Any superpower she can dream up belongs to her. (And when you’re four and you have to do what your parents tell you all the time, it’s the ultimate in fun to fantasize about omnipotence).

Without further ado, I’ll let you in on the secret of our superpowers. You are the only ones who know this. Well, you and EVERY SINGLE PERSON WE MEET IN A PUBLIC PLACE. It’s getting a little old to explain to unsuspecting adults what she’s rattling on about. Plus, the way she spills secrets, if we were superheroes, the bad guys would be having us for breakfast. I mean, we don’t even wear those magic glasses that apparently make Clark Kent look so different that no one recognizes him when he takes them off to become Superman.

But I digress.

Anyway: Miss Pink has become Windy Girl. Her main superpower, as she describes it, is, “I freeze the bad guys with my wind and they can’t move.” She can also use this power as a practical joke, as when she told her parents in the car, “I froze you! So you can’t move.” But she was gracious enough to inform us that she didn’t freeze Daddy’s hands or our mouths. Since we were driving in the car and talking, this was all we needed, so we thanked her.

Windy Girl also co-opts other powers; she can fly, and she has inherited her parents’ ability to shoot webs and to become invisible (more on that in a minute). She loves the wind, as you might assume, but also the sunshine, which she controls as well (not sure how that works).

The father in the family is none other than Spider-Man. This is because Windy Girl saw Spider-Man 2 on TV and was entranced. (Yes, we let her watch a movie rated PG-whatever. You wouldn’t have had the heart to turn the TV off either.) It did not scare her and I think it is sweet that she thinks enough of her dad to make him her hero.

The baby is Radar Boy. I actually named him this for his uncanny ability to locate an open toilet or dishwasher—his latest trick is to climb up and stand on the open door.

As for me, I am named Invisible Mom. I’m not sure why this is my name since I am never able to become invisible when I truly want to, such as when I am trying to take a shower and there is someone crying and banging on the door the whole time.

I’ll leave you with one last anecdote. Yesterday Windy Girl came over to me, sighed, and in a world-weary voice proclaimed, “Mom, I’m tired of being a superhero.”

“Okay, honey, you don’t have to be a superhero all the time. But why don’t you want to be a superhero?”

“I’m just tired of saving the world all the time. It’s hard work, you know?”

Yes, my dear, I do know.