Adventure Time

Shae has a bunch of stuff coming up this week that is probably a much bigger deal to me than it is to her: first flat-ironings, dance recitals, graduation, stuff like that. Milestones are kind of meaningless when you're six and your whole life is literally ahead of you. Of course, I'll be a total cracked-out mess, as usual, with all the pictures to prove it. In the meantime: a story.

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We don't watch a lot of superhero shows in our house. We're not really opposed to them, in theory, but Shae is highly suggestible and we're just trying to be proactive about any potential behavioral changes that might result from exposure to stuff she's not ready for. Others probably call this a symptom of the "pussification" of our children; they're probably correct to a large degree. But at the same time, these Others don't have to live with a kid who thinks that all adopted children -- e.g., Superman, Hercules, the Power Puff Girls -- have either super powers or Daddy Warbuckses.

But like every kid ever born in America ever, my kid is at least aware of your major superheroes. Batman, Iron Man, Wonder Woman, etc. It might be a while before she understands why funny sideburns and yellow Spandex sometimes makes Mommy weak in the knees (by the old gods and the new, I hope this remains the case), but she knows who the X-Men are. And she already knows that when she grows up, she's going to be the superhero who saves everybody, "not just some silly boy who only saves the pretty girls with down hair."

So why is this blog post all pictures of my niece running around my uncle's back yard wearing a scarf around her neck, superhero-style?

Because more than once, when someone asked her who she was pretending to be, while she was doing this very thing ...

... my niece said, "Super-Shae!" And Shae would reply, "Makayla is my hero." And they were both right.