Superhero Powers and A Couple of Tangents

Small Disclaimer: This was written a week ago. And I was gonna post it on Wednesday last, but then my husband was all "ooh, I'm so awesome, I'm so wonderful" and I had to blog about it. And then Danyo was all, "ooh, ooh, I'm so cute, I'm so funny, my mom laughs like a drunk woman, I'm gonna be a movie star" and I had to post about it. So now, you get it. Just pretend it's last week.

For the past two weeks I have been training for a new job. The actual job will be only in the evenings and very few hours a week, or even a month. But in order to train for it, I have been working about 40 hours a week, during the day. J switched shifts with his operations manager so he has been going to work in the evenings, after I get home. It hasn't been easy, and my hat is off to people who actually do this regularly without turning into raging monstrous psycho beasts grumper wumpers. Like me. I am tired. I miss my kids desperately, but their voices annoy me. I'm tired. I don't want them touching me. I just want to see their sweet little faces during the day. And I'm tired.

It's been an interesting shift. My kids call me dad. They mostly go to him for a basic need where they always came to me by default. Although, for middle of the night calls, I'm still parent of choice. I was awake last night when Avee flew out of her bed for some unknown reason and bolted into our room. I saw her make her way to the side of the bed I had been sleeping on for the past few weeks. (J's idea of shaking things up is to switch sleeping sides frequently.)

I watched her hustle around the bed, spot J's face and stop cold. I saw it on her face, "Well then where the heck is the mom one?!" I called to her and then pulled her into bed with me and asked, "What's going on?"

Her answer, which never ceases to amuse me, "Nuffin!". It's not just a regular "nuffin". It's filled with attitude. As though she needs a reason to come flying into our bedroom like a bat out of hell, to wake me up. I snuggled with her a few minutes and then took her back to her bed.

And that has nothing to do with anything.

Oh right, I was just bragging that even though J's been the primary care giver, and an excellent one, for the past two weeks---I'm still the most attractive one at 2 am. And by attractive I mean, I don't swat them away and make them go back to their own bed.

In my conversations with the kids, when I'm the stay-at-home parent, I'm more about, oh---manners. "Do not put that finger there. Seriously? Do you really think that's where hands belong? What!? Are you trying to make me throw up?!" and, self esteem---"You're so smart! I love how you think. You know why you are so smart? You have good genes..."

In J's conversations with the kids, it's more about superhero powers. Bo's superhero power is "Brain Power". This encompasses many many things. Just one of the talents of his brain power. The ability to pick a power that encompasses pretty much any single superhero power another person has. Because you see, it all starts with the brain.

This morning Bo asked me what my superhero power would be and I sort answered the first thing that popped into my mind.

"Probably the ability to read people's mind."
"Oh yeah, that's cool. Mine is bwain powoh. I already have the ability to wead peopoh's mind with my bwain powoh."
"That's good thinking Bo!"

"Yeah. I can also move things with my bwain. I could leave them hanging in the aiyoh if I wanted to."
"Oooh, I hadn't thought of that, maybe I want that to be my superhero power, that would be really helpful."
"Yeah, you should have that one. Then I wouldn't have to bwing you a diapoh foh Danyo, you could just get it with yo mind."
"So, my superhero power would be helpful for you too, wouldn't it?"
"Pwetty much."

I get a big kick out of the aftermath of the kids' conversations with J. At Bo's parent/teacher conference, before we even sat down--the teacher told us how impressed she was by an answer Bo had given just that day. She went around and asked all the kids to express something they had learned about trees during their past few weeks learning about trees. "bark" "leaves change" etc, etc, were the kinds of answers she got. Bo talked about how trees breathe in carbon dioxide which is what we breathe out. They breathe out oxygen, which is what we breathe in, and we work off of each other like that.

I laughed and pointed at J. J who won't settle for "And this is what we call the trunk" when talking to his five year old about trees. His teacher looked at J and said, "Oh, are you interested in science?" Uh yeah. Among 5 million other things. That's exactly right. Housecleaning supplies, anyone?

Back to superhero powers.

Avee's power of choice would be the ability to turn anything pink. Grandma would be proud.