February 11, 2011

My Superpower?

"So if you could have one superpower, Mum, what would it be?"  It was past eight thirty, and I was trying to get my nine year old daughter to bed, but it was a good question. And certainly far, far easier to answer than the last one.

"When is a good time to have your first kiss?" she asked me, just the previous day.

"Just a peck on the lips, or a proper kiss?" I asked without thinking (stupid, stupid mistake).

"Proper kiss," she said.

I thought for a moment. "Thirteen," I told her, and then kicked myself immediately for not answering 'twenty-one'.

"Um, Mum.... what's a proper kiss?" she asked next, and I kicked myself again. Harder, this time.

I tried to answer her question gently, using mild phrases such as 'open lips' and 'touch tongues', but my daughter responded with such violent horror that I feared I had done her permanent damage.

Happily, with the question of superpowers, I felt myself to be on much more solid ground. Then again, I had no idea what I'd choose.

"What superpower would you want?" I asked, hoping to buy myself a bit of time.

"I'd want to be invisible," she said confidently, "so I could sneak out of class." Then she thought for a moment, and wrinkled her nose. "Except that I wouldn't need to sneak out of class if no-one knew I was missing...."

I nodded. It was a good point.

My eleven year old son wandered into the room. "Invisibility is lame," he said, dismissively.
"Yeah, it's lame," my daughter agreed. "I don't want Invisibility. I want Duplicability."

My son laughed. "Huh? What's Duplicability?"

"You know - the ability to make two of me," she said. "One of me can stay in the classroom, and the other one can sneak out and play."

"But then you'd fight with each other about who goes to class and who gets to play!" he said. I was impressed. His logic was impeccable.

"So then we'd both be invisible and we'd both get to play!" she retorted.

"So then why do you need two of you?"

She looked momentarily confused, then giggled. "Okay, what superpower would you have?" she asked him.

"I'd want a force field around me," he said.

I raised my eyebrows. "Would you really need a forcefield?" I asked. "I mean, it's not like you get attacked very often. Not many Evil Supervillains around these parts."

My son rolled his eyes. "Yep, Mum, I do know that. But I could use it to win at hand ball."

Oh. Fair enough. I couldn't argue with that.

"So come on, Mum," my daughter prompted. "What superpower do you want?"

I thought intently. Did I want to fly? Did I want to read minds? Did I want to be able to eat whatever I wanted and never get fat? Did I want to be able to conjure family meals out of thin air? Did I want to make housework disappear with only the power of my mind?

I was tired. I couldn't think straight. It was late. And the kids were showing no signs of going to bed.

"I want the power to get you kids to sleep whenever I want!" I announced triumphantly.

They snorted. "Mum, that's never going to happen," they said.

True. But Force Fields and Duplicability aren't ever going to happen either. And hey, a mum's got to have a dream.

17 comments:

  1. Or the power to stop them asking unanswerable questions?!

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  2. Love it. I miss those questions from my boys. At least you haven't had the "mum if I kiss a boy does that mean I'm gay?" ... that was a doozy. I love the getting kids to sleep whenever you want is THE BEST SUPERPOWER EVER!

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  3. I quite like the conjuring of meals out of thin air! The bane of my life - cooking!

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  4. I'll put my hand up for a dose of the "getting the kids to sleep" super power, please!

    My Mr10 is clearly unimaginative as he's never asked curly questions. We still haven't needed to have the "where did I come from?" talk because he's never asked.

    But back to the super power, I've always wanted to be a witch if we can stretch to call that a super power. I'm not talking about the flying around on a broom type (although husband probably thinks I'm already there), nor the Harry Potter type, but the Samantha Stevens type. I'd love the able to wiggle my nose and have the house clean and tidy, or the washing hung on the line, or better yet dinner on the table.

    *sigh*

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  5. I love these posts. The banter is unreal between your kids.

    I want a superpower that lets me log into my husbands mind and make him see that the washing cycle has finished and recognise that as a sign to take it out and put on a new load. I really wouldn't use my logging in superpower for evil purposes. Like say, making him suddenly want to massage my shoulders all evening. Never. xx

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  6. Teleportation as I'd love to be able to pop in and out of anywhere in the world, Sunday Dim Sum lunch in Hong Kong, afternoon with Mona in the Lourve & a champers on the Champs Elysee followed by dinner at The Fat Duck and then gambling & dancing in Vegas only to awake in the tropical Bora Bora and head to work/school/home to feed the cat Monday morning and avoid PT horrors in peak hour!! :)

    But now that I read Bern's reply I'm rethinking...

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  7. Hah - I already have mine, and I won a blog this challenge bragging about it:

    http://meanderingmadmother.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-new-super-power-or-how-mummy-saved.html

    You'll never guess what it is...

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  8. I'd like to be able to morph into Simon Baker, at will. Kerri's got more chance of meeting me than him, so it would be a nice way to brighten her day,without her having to hop on a plane to Hollywood...........

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  9. Hmm, not exacftly a super power but I would like to be like Samantha Stevens and just wriggle my nose to get instant tidy house/home cooked meal/new outfit/ whatever. That would be awesome!

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  10. I think i'd still like a stun gun, you know the one you wished you had when they were 2 & arched their backs so you couldn't get them into car seats. Eldest is in high school & so far, most brilliant perfectly behaved child ever, SO much better than the last few weeks of school holidays, she's finally 'busy' again . . . but i'm sure a stun gun would be handy on her & the other 3. OMG, trying to get the 3 primary ones into the car so i can pick up the high schooler, this is proving an impossible task for popular children who don't want to leave their friends!! I won today as one friend was coming home with us for dinner, which resulted in 6 girls in my car all begging to come . . . i could use the stun gun on other people's children, sure, especially if i picked them up & put them in their OWN cars?? First kiss hey, good luck with that, my son (aged 7) has stuck his tongue out kissing me good night before & giggled saying "that was a tongue kiss" which i SO hope he never mentions to anyone. Eeewww, wrong on so many levels. Love Posie

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  11. I make milk! Thats a superpower!

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  12. Gosh, after a hell night of ups and downs with Miss 4, I was *going* to put down my dream superpower until I read the bottom of the post! And then there were everyone else's (er, hi, my name's *Twitchy*...;) ) So all I have left that hasn't been covered is the ability to turn my ears off periodically at will. (Oh look, someone is whining directly into my left one as I type.) Be gone sibling bickering and whining! Be gone sleeptalkers and night-time throat clearers! Damn you Mother Ears that are always ON.

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  13. My daughter asks lots of tricky questions...but I think the trickiest question she has ever asked me was..."Well if heaven is so good, why don't we all just go there right now?"
    I told her that it was unfortunately a one way trip!

    My desired superpower? I would like to morph into Kerri....so that when fender4eva morphs into Simon Baker....I also get to meet Simon Baker (even though it wouldn't be the real Simon Baker). But then we might need some Duplicability to successfully pull this off.

    Trish
    xx

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  14. I would totally have the power of mind control... you know, paying for things with a $5 note and making them believe it's a $50, that sort of thing. "You're sleepy! time to go to bed!"... could totally work!

    meanwhile, I'm terrified of how I'm going to answer these questions one day haha. Not good at thinking on my feet!

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  15. Teleportation as I'd love to be able to pop in and out of anywhere in the world, Sunday Dim Sum lunch in Hong Kong, afternoon with Mona in the Lourve & a champers on the Champs Elysee followed by dinner at The Fat Duck and then gambling & dancing in Vegas only to awake in the tropical Bora Bora and head to work/school/home to feed the cat Monday morning and avoid PT horrors in peak hour!! :)

    But now that I read Bern's reply I'm rethinking...

    ReplyDelete
  16. I love these posts. The banter is unreal between your kids.

    I want a superpower that lets me log into my husbands mind and make him see that the washing cycle has finished and recognise that as a sign to take it out and put on a new load. I really wouldn't use my logging in superpower for evil purposes. Like say, making him suddenly want to massage my shoulders all evening. Never. xx

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