Super Powers

The girls love Super Heroes and the idea that people have Super Powers. Aly cried at one point when she awoke from a dream in which she was flying and realized that it was not real. Caroline has worn her SuperGirl outfit each day since Halloween and practices flying daily. Once, on the way to school, I looked back at Aly and saw her squinting her eyes at the cars in front of us; when she saw me looking, she informed me, "This is my super power that only I have: I can make things blurry when I look at them." (She apparently doesn't realize the "power" of my astigmatism!).

After thinking about it for awhile, I told them that they do, in fact, have a Super Power--one that grown-ups don't have. I told them that they have imaginations that can make them anything, anytime, doing any action they want. I told them that this power is different because only kids have it.

As I try to keep up with what and who they are pretending to be each day, I realize that this super power of childhood imagination truly is an amazing thing. It allows a cardboard box to be several hours worth of entertainment; it allows a little girl to be a detective, ballerina, and character from a book all at the same time; it keeps them up at night when it fills their closet with scary monsters; and it allows them to have an invisible friend named "Fritz" who is with them always. I can't remember when my imagination left, but I know that our little world will be a lot less interesting around here when these kids' "SuperPowers" are no more.