I often think of a clever thing that Jovi used to have at the bottom of her email, which went something like "I make milk. What' s your superpower?" The first time I read this I just rolled with laughter, primarily because it was so validating, so descriptive of that strange absurdity (is there any other kind?) that I felt when I realized that my body could single-handedly sustain each of my children for years, collectively. There is, in fact, a breastfeeding book entitled "How My Breasts Saved the World", and I must say that the title isn't anything if it isn't accurate.
I. CAN. FEED. ENTIRE. VILLAGES!
Okay, so enough of the power trip. I say all that, though, to remark on other superpowers that I have been more impressed with as of late. Don't get me wrong. The milk thing is major. But now that I'm on my umpteenth year of nursing, and have a fairly good handle on how it works, I am more amazed by my ability to do other things that don't make much sense to me at all.
Take, for instance, my superhuman sense of hearing. Perhaps other parents out there have it, but I never fail to be impressed with how I can hear the smallest bit of mischief going on in the most remote part of the house furthest from where I currently am. My "middle of the night" ears are also astounding in the fact that they can hear the smallest whimper through closed doors, 1 floor apart (Brian will tell you that they're not always well-functioning ears, since he had to rescue a screaming Micah from his crib last night at 4 AM when I didn't get up to go to him. Dude. I heard him. I just was refusing to move.)
And my sniffer is working pretty well, too. I can always smell a dirty diaper before anyone else, and lately I've been able to detect absolute micro-particles of baby powder with relative speed, mere seconds after one of the older children has opened the bottle and squeezed it hard, always one and sometimes two floors from where I am (Which reminds me to ask why we *own* baby powder, which is used for nothing but these powder bombs. And can be unsafe if you breathe it in. There's my obligatory health warning).
I can also do a host of other parent tricks, like predict the actual numeric value of a fever with the palm of my hand. But I am most proud of a pseudo-superpower, which I like to call "The Ability to See Through Children and Their Motives with the Speed of a Cheetah." It doesn't hurt that my children are rather transparent in their guilt. This is why I label this a mere "pseudo-superpower": they're terrible liars. Like their father.
This is good for me.
Off to brew my morning superpotion and ponder my greatness.
2 comments:
My husband and I always joke that Bert has no poker face. I can tell when he's going to pick something up and put it in his mouth because he will flex his hands and open his mouth and THEN pick the object up.
You forgot to mention another mom-super power: the ability to tell why your baby is crying! My husband can tell if Bert is really tired and sometimes if he needs to have his diaper changed, but I can tell if he's hungry, thirsty, bored, tired, wet, gassy, etc.
i love that quote. i wish i could still use it! i'll have to think of a new superpower to use for the rest of my life...or more than one, really.
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