My Super Hero

Alyssa has a way of leaving the room in the most dramatic way. As if she is a superhero called for immediate duty.

I just love the way she'd tuck her head to the side, as if she was holding on to her cape with her cheek while both hands are simultaneously busy; one pointing towards the danger, the other strong arming her teddy bear with her elbow. Fists clenched for battle.

In real life she's a four-year-old know-it-all. She's a great swimmer, but she did wack herself good right into the pool wall. She didn't have her goggles on and didn't see it coming. She insists it isn't a huge egg in the middle of her forehead, but rather the beginning of her unicorn horn. Talk about an optimist.

"Mooooouuuuuum?"

Could she be pre-pre-prepubescent? "Yes, my dear?"

"When I'm all grown up...Mom, are you listening?"

"Yes, my dear."

"I want to be a pony."

"Is there a college for that?"

She is a prolific artist and if practice makes perfect, she will grow up to be the best at recycling. Every week, Kindy receives 40 families' worth of clean rubbish for the kids to practice scissor skills and cello tape skills. She's nearly obsessed. We have the gallery stuffed with her creations.

The other day she came home saying, Girls rule and boys drool. Her Girl Power is confidence to the highest level, even as high as the stone wall at the end of Kindy's lane. While I precariously balance her art of the day, she scales it as she would at the climbing gym -one little step at a time. But her determination is relentless. She doesn't quit until she has mastered it, attained it, and made it hers in some way; even if that means using a magic marker, voicing her opinion, or leaping from the tallest stone wall in the neighborhood at every single opportunity.

This is not her jumping from a stone wall, but rather practicing on the trampoline for the One Day she thinks she will fly. Practice makes perfect you know. She asked me to take this picture. She knew exactly how she wanted to be captured. I think I'll blow it up into a big poster and hang it in her room.

Possibly mine, too.