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Ostriches Look Funny: Sometimes I Write Stuff Down So I Remember It When The Superheroes Move Out
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I squeezed him hard, with all my mom muscles. I tried to will him to be small in my arms for longer. Not forever maybe, just for...as long as I feel like it.
Four is a fun year.
"MOM! You gave me a HULK SQUEEZE!" he was delighted.
"Yes," I said grasping the moment, "because that's how much I love you."
"Well," he countered, "I love you more than Hulk. I love you SUPERMAN!"
He flopped down onto the bed with Thomas the Train sheets, proud of himself for outwitting me.
He loves superheroes. He is not allowed to watch them because he confuses little brothers with bad guys, but he begs me to tell him the stories. So I do. Sort of. He doesn't like the parts about bad guys so we skip them.
I don't want to forget this age. We're teetering on the cusp of something new and different. I feel like the Thomas sheets are on their last legs, and I wanted to cry when he peeled off his monkey decal that guards over his bed. He doesn't like it anymore. The words by the monkey are starting to become a depressing prophecy, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed".
It's not so much monkeys anymore. It's more like Iron Man and Thor. Soon the Superheroes will go the way of the Monkeys and what will be left? Girls? ACK!
I try not to go there. I try to live in the moment with these boys. I try to look to the future with a smile and a tear, but mostly a smile.
"OUCH!" he cries from the backseat.
"Huh?" I ask absentmindedly. I was composing a poem about haystacks in my head, because that's what I do in minivans.
"Oh....nothing. I just have a growing pain. But, I'm not going to fuss about it because when I grow up I'm going to be SUPERMAN!" he announces seriously.
I don't laugh. I say, "Good. That sounds good!"
"When I go up, I'm gonna be BATMAN!" pipes in the three year old.
And that's where we're at. Raising superheroes, destroying monkeys, growing pains for everyone. I'll try not to fuss about it.
And just for fun, this is a very short video of someone trying to gun down the goose.
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