My (Super)Hero

Lamb is at camp this week--I am so excited for her!  We are very, very fortunate to have our church camp just 15 minutes away, and it is fantastic!  She invited our neighbor girls to go with her, and it is just "day camp" for now--we pick her up each day at 5:00... except today (Wednesday). This is her "optional overnight", and she (and the neighbor girls) opted to stay. Since this is the child who routinely gets up 2-3 times a night because she is scared in her own room, I wasn't overly optimistic... but it is now 10 PM and I haven't gotten a phone call yet, so it looks like we might be good!

While she's away this week, I've been trying to spend some fun quality time with the boys, and today I promised Monkey I would take him to the zoo.  We have a membership to our local zoo,  and we probably go at least twice a month while the weather is nice.  So this morning I packed Lamb's overnight bag (which, for the record, was probably the LARGEST overnight bag there...), then I packed up a bag of snacks & lunch (& a bottle & formula & baby food) to take to the zoo... which was still sitting right there on the counter waiting for us when we got home from the zoo.

So after I shelled out $20 for lunch (Seriously? For me & my 4-year-old??? Oh, and I did buy a little side of applesauce for Roo...), we had a nice beautiful day at the zoo.  Right up until we were at the play area... and there were some bigger kids there... and they told Monkey that he isn't a superhero.

Uh-oh.

Well... fortunately (or not), Monkey is pretty stubborn bull-headed determined and willing to fight for what he believes in, so he didn't back down.  No, he didn't actually fight them, but he yelled, "Yes I AM a superhero!" and then tried to show them his superpowers (which I think were supposed to be some kind of force field or fireballs or something coming from his hands)... but unfortunately that amused them more than it scared them.  I could see that he was getting a little desperate and wasn't sure whether to explode in anger or explode into tears, so I called him over.  He was fine until he opened his mouth to tell me about it... and then the tears came.

"They said I'm not a superhero!"

"I know, Buddy, I know.  But you know what?  That means you're doing a great job of disguising yourself, like Peter Parker. And I know you're a superhero.  You're my superhero.  I don't know what I would do without you around."

"OK, Mommy." "Can we go ride the train now?"

Mr. Fantastic and I have really worked hard not to lie to our kids... OK, aside from the whole Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy thing... I don't tell them that we're all out of pop if I don't want them to have any, I don't tell them that the McDonald's Play Place is closed if I don't have time to take them there, I don't tell them that the law says I can't do any Mommy Work after 8 PM (an actual tip I read in a parenting magazine)... but I wasn't about to tell him that he's not a superhero.

He's 4.  He'll figure it out on his own way too soon.

But tonight, when I looked in his room and saw him sprawled out on his bed in his Superman pajamas... I couldn't imagine a better hero, super or otherwise.