Mamas and Superpowers

Sage Says:

It seems its a given that parents have superpowers.  

My dad had the look.  

If he sent it your way you knew you had one shot to straighten up, and you better do it now.  He could send it through walls and across town.

My mom had this zen straightforward thing going on.  She wasn't one to dodge a question.  Ever.  You could ask anything and she would calmly answer, with love and no judgement.  I still ask her questions!

Her and Dad raised my brother and I into pretty decent, kind, hardworking adults.  Their superpowers had punch!  They worked!  

I've got momma friends now with spectacular superpowers.  Shayla is one, she probably has several momma superpowers.  She has given me advice and shared concepts like being your child's advocate.  I can honestly say that one hadn't crossed my mind until she used it.  Her kids are kind, intelligent, neat, individuals.  It is working!  

So, I asked myself what my superpower is.  I've thought about this most of the morning.  I've narrowed it down to one thing.  

My superpower is holding it.  

Parents of small children can relate, right?  Mine are 10,9,7 and when they were smaller there was no way I could go somewhere and use a restroom without causing a cleanup on aisle 3, fearing that my oldest would walk off; hand in hand, with the first person she took a fancy to, and at least one would be climbing the highest obstacle in a matter of seconds.  So I held it.

Kids rodeos, and the outhouse is on the other side of the arena from where we parked...all day, I could hold it.  

No way was I going to take my eyes off of my ornery bunch on horseback.  They would probably try and rope someone, bail off a horse to chase lizards; leaving the horse to roam freely while said child disappears, ride up into the grandstand and trade horseback rides for candy.  Actually, they have tried most of those things, even with me watching.  So, you can see why I held it.  

Squirrel!  I read somewhere that your bladder is like a rubber band, the more you stretch it, the more it wears out.  I probably ought to buy stock in Depends, if that is the case.  Oh, I could be a rich old lady with my own line of leaky bladder products!

I am not sure how useful my super power is, and as I think about it, I realize it stems from not trusting my kids much.  

There is a term in parenting these days, 'helicopter parent.'  

I think that is me, and they probably use my picture in all the definitions of the term.  

No worries, I am pretty excited it isn't a picture in stripes or on the Channel 4 news.  Yet.  I'm ok with my copter-ness.  My kids are ornery, and I buzz to keep us all alive.  And, off of Channel 4.  

My hopes are that as my children age, my superpower will morph into a new, cool superpower.  Like eyes in the back of my head.  Or the ability to tell when one is lying...  that could really be useful at my house.  When I have a "Not-Me" case show up, I have to punish all three of mine equally, because at this point, I would never get it right, and the one who did it would never get punished.  At least this way, I get the culprit...and his or her innocent siblings.  

Yes, my parenting is far from perfect.  But right now, I bet you that I can outhold you any time, any place. If there was an Olympics of holding it, I would be proud to carry our flag and know I actually could be in contention for the Gold.  

Squirrel!  The kids and I are off to saddle up horses and check cows...could be a long day and I'll be holding it until I am sure no one is getting bucked off, roping calves, chasing squirrels or riding through wire.  

Shayla says:

I think my cousin is a little generous with her praise of my parenting skills.

Attention Deficit sidebar confession: Things my cousin probably doesn’t know: I was behind the wheel of a vehicle that ran over my oldest child once. 

I’m calling BS on that whole “a mother gets super human strength when her baby is in danger” National Enquirer crap. I ran around hysterically screaming for neighbors to help me before finally deciding I needed to move the car off her arm myself. She didn’t even get a bruise and I spent the next three days in bed sobbing.

Maybe mama super powers don’t kick in until later but even when I had my next kid and went to give him a swat on the behind for something, I couldn’t muster up super speed to catch his ornery little four year old self and ended up snatching him by the collar and performing an NFL drop kick that caused us all to laugh hysterically instead of actually inflict punishment but I digress…

So my dear Sage, I think it's more experience than super powers that afford me the opportunity to offer you any sort of wisdom. Similar to combat veterans, I am able to give you an idea as to how to disarm a timebomb or outflank the enemy, but when you surely understand, we’re all just hunkering down, fighting the good fight, and praying we come out alive.

Now as far as having the super power of being able to hold it, well my cousin has me beat there. 

After having a nearly 10lb baby, I thought I would have to buy a purse to carry around my bladder. Thank God for surgical intervention and the fact that in the big city there is a bathroom nearly on every street corner. 

 Attention Deficit Sidebar: If you ever find yourself attending a weekend soccer tournament, your ability to hold it will be of great service to you. It only took me one encounter with a porta-potty to come up with the new strategy of being able to spot a convenience store or restaurant near the fields. Somehow, usually through clenched teeth while muttering, “Please let me make it,” I was able to get to a flushing commode every time.

So what would I consider to be my mom super power? Hmmm….

My own mother has the ability to make her children’s butts tense up by talking through her teeth. While I haven’t mastered that, I’m pretty damn good.

And I think all moms develop similar super strengths like that magic mommy spit that is the universal solvent to remove anything from a child’s skin or the rubber arm that can, in one all powerful swoop, reach across the entire width of a car to keep a child from flying out the windshield (Or at least we think it does. Sometimes we moms are legends in our own minds…)

But I guess my super power is that I am “Worst Case Scenario Girl.” 

Everything my kids do causes me to jump to the worst case scenario.

My daughter has gone for a jog and has been gone for more than twenty minutes? Obviously she’s been raped and is cast aside in a ditch and I must get in the car to search for her.

My son’s cell phone is off? He’s been kidnapped.

My adult son is “working late”? Dear God...he’s being held at gunpoint I just know it!

Maybe I am a helicopter parent like Sage.

Maybe running over my own baby caused some reaction akin to being bit by a radioactive spider.

Maybe I have issues. 

Okay. That’s a probably.

But the one benefit of being “Worst Case Scenario Girl” is that it has boded well for me in some circumstances because my kids jump to their own worst case scenario conclusions.

My daughter got a detention one time for talking. She got in the car after school, sobbing because she was sure that I was going to go ballistic over her classroom infraction. Instead, much to her surprise, I burst out laughing.

“You’re not mad?”

“Oh good grief Alex. It was for talking.”  

“I told my teacher you were going to kill me!”

“Really? I was going to ‘kill’ you? Let’s be realistic. What would’ve been the worst that could happen? I might ground you?”

“Yeah...I guess.” She almost looked disappointed that she had predicted incorrectly. We Faulkner women sometimes take being right so seriously that we would almost rather die than be wrong.

In truth, I didn’t even ground her.  

In fact, I probably just told her to put on her seatbelt...ya know, just in case my super human rubber arm didn’t work that day...because we were likely to get sideswiped by a semi on the mean streets of Phoenix and die.

Thank goodness there were plenty of places to stop and use the restroom on the way home.