What It’s Like Living with a Superhero

Our youngest,Willy, occasionally wears a cape. At first I wasn’t sure if he had any special powers, but then they revealed themselves in a not so subtle way. You see, William has “super X strength,” that is, might disproportionate to his size.

Willy is in the 75th percentile for height and 100th for width. He’s a very stocky, dense kid. The gravity must have been greater on his home planet compared to that here on earth. In 2018, he started second grade weighing in at a fourth grader's mass. He’s unusually muscular. Instead of baby fat, Willy has a six pack. It’s not easy raising a superhero. They have to learn all the things just like every other human child, but they also must discover, harness, and eventually master their extraordinary gifts.

At first Willy’s unusual strength caused him to break a lot of things. It all started with his older brother’s pristine Thomas the Tank Engine collection which Willy inherited. Aidan always took impeccable care of his toys. At a very early age, William became fascinated with Thomas and Friends careening off the table. It wasn’t long before William broke Thomas’s face. He handed me the hapless tank engine's head in three pieces, while saying,

“Fix please.”

His brother, who is eight years older, is our go to babysitter. Whenever my wife, Christine, and I enjoy a night out on the drive home we always wonder aloud what William might have destroyed. He tends to plow right through things rather than bothering to go around.

He broke two banisters on the handrail to the staircase while running in socks. He also cracked the glass on his iPad three times. That was kind of my fault. I didn’t know that superheros are supposed to get tempered glass on their mobile devices. He also managed to rip a seam in our newly reupholstered couch by sitting too forcefully. When young, superheroes tend to gravitate to high places like the backs of couches as such vantage points offer the best opportunity to scan the landscape for bad guys.

Recently, while getting toilet paper from the roll, William snapped off the spindle. It’s made of metal, but it broke like a twig. When we had William's grip strength measured by his pediatrician, he broke the tester. The other day after spending some “we time” at the gym, Christine and I returned to find that William accidentally tore the door to his room off the jam. We never got a straight answer how it happened because he is somewhat self conscious over his unusual strength, and we thought it might not be a good idea to upset him too much should he turn green and grow in size before going on an anger induced rampage. I’ve got an ever expanding list of things to fix, most of which will have to wait for winter to set in as fall outdoor cleanup absorbs most of my time.

The other day we got a note from his teacher. William was selected to participate as a “partner” for the Unified Sports Team, a national program coordinated by the Special Olympics. As a participant, William is to assist athletes in achieving their goals. His teacher said he was chosen due to his "leadership, positive attitude, and compassion for others in the school setting." He was very proud as was I, but I wasn't surprised.

Compassion is his other superpower, the one he's already mastered.

Editor's Note: Originally published on October 9, 2018. A few readers asked if William really pulled the door to his room off the jam. He did. We're a bit unsure how he managed to do it and suspect his older brother was involved, but neither is talking.

Recently William announced that as a fifth grader he would no longer smile for his school picture. He said that the time for seriousness is upon him. He must be thinking about the task before him, a life of fighting for truth, justice and equity but not the bad things historically associated with socialism.