Epic "Quiet Floor Play" Fail

You know those mornings when you're feeling kind of blah and in need of a little pick-me-up? And it's post-holidays, and the place is a mess, and everyone is itching to get back to some kind of normal - if your life can even remotely be described as 'normal' even on the best of days - and the Christmas tree needs to come down, and you had to tear up the bathroom a few days ago because your makeup met the inside of the toilet bowl and caused some major problems, and everything just seems a little bleak?

That's when some people might think to themselves: "Gosh, if it weren't for all that unprotected sex over the last decade, I would probably have a cleaner house. Why? Because my childless-by-choice spouse and I would be somewhere tropical for the holidays, getting young tanned cabana boys to serve us non-alcoholic drinks with little umbrellas in them."

Some people might think that, but not me. No way, Jose (or whatever my Cabana boy's name might be). I'm far too dedicated a parent to have succumbed to the feeling that having three kids in a messy house for two weeks with a semi-broken bathroom to boot might be overwhelming and/or depressing. No way. Not me.

Okay, maybe once, but only for a second. Because, before I knew it, Spawnling burst into the kitchen and disrupted my overcast thought process with "Hey, Mom! Look what I can do!"



And just like that, I remembered why having kids is so awesome. My littlest ray of light chased away any negative thoughts. That kid gets cuter by the day. Shortly after that, he stacked a bunch of cups precariously on the table and confidently declared "See? No problem at all. Pizza cake!"

Later on, I decided to put a temporary ban on game consoles and the Nick channel so we could do some "creative play." And believe me, it gets very creative around here. Spawnling amassed a nice collection of Littlest Pet Shop toys over the holidays, so I yanked those out, dumped them on the living room floor, and started pretending.

It took me back to the My Little Pony days of old, where I would brush their pretty manes and send them out to prance around in the field/shag carpet. We would have a good time, those ponies and I; Together, we would work out complicated social situations and navigate the immature waters of schoolyard crushes through imaginary play, all the while beautifying our pony stables with pink furniture borrowed from Barbie.

So, when Spawnling took an interest in Littlest Pet Shop animals and their accessories, I knew this was an activity I would shine at. I would show him the ropes of quiet floor play, and draw my boy into the wondrous world of make-believe that had a whole lot of interior decorating and a serious lack of fight scenes. With three boys in the house, we see enough fight scenes, thank you.

... And then the seven-year-old and thirteen-year-old gremlins came over to ask what we were doing. We were at the museum, I explained to them. Would they like to grab a Pet Shop friend and play with us? I knew I had them: With no computer or console games to entertain them, what were they going to do? They had exhausted drawing and various board and card games, so they had little choice. It was visit the makeshift museum I had made, or be bored to tears.

They picked up a character to play with.

"But, you know..." thought Intrepid aloud. "We could always build Spawnling's Pets an entire city."

"With Lego and stuff!" Gutsy jumped in excitedly.

This was going to be great! My boys would make a cute little town for their brother's toys, and they would all play happily with something outside their comfort zone.

Retrain the brain, Maven. Show those boys a new way to play! Better start patting that back of yours, because you are an awesome freaking parent.

Before long, the city took shape. Of course, there was the museum designed by yours truly. This would obviously be the standard for all the other smiley-happy-friendly spots in the town. While the gremlins continued their creations, I went into the kitchen to make some coffee.



When I came back with a cuppa, there was a park, complete with slide and merry-go-round. Very cute.



Oh, and look! A zoo with the Madagascar crew in it! A little strange that animals would go visit other animals in a zoo, but Arthur the aardvark has a dog, so why not? And sure, there appeared to be a UFO in a palm tree, but isn't that part of the 12 Days of Christmas song? I think it is. Gutsy was simply squeezing out the last bit of holly jolly in his system, that's all.



But, um... What was this last thing?



"It's a haunted house, Mom!" explained Gutsy. "And look: The skeleton scares all the animals that go inside, and the knight chops them up!"

Intrepid cried "Cool! Let me try!"

"Me first!" squealed Spawnling in delight, as he rushed over to the knight's gleaming axe with a wide-eyed hedgehog.

I give up.

The Mighty Super Spawn!

This morning I wrote a post. That post totally sucked. It was, in one of my loyal reader's words, "mysterious and vague... and a little bit icky". She was so right. It pretty much reflected my headspace as of late, which has been muddled and icky. So I've decided to delete that awful bit of confusing mess and start over. Here is attempt #2 at a decent bit of blogging.

This is Spawnling. By all appearances he is your average toddler. He has two older brothers, a father and a terribly good looking mother. He knows his colours, most of his upper case letters and how to count to fourteen. He boycotts the potty and has a healthy fear of the time out spot on the stairs.

But there's another persona lurking in the shadows. For, when the world needs righting and there are parks to conquer, Spawnling is magically transformed into Super Spawn!

Actually, he likes to be called Super Batmunk, after a most horrific Chipmunks at the Movies episode where they redo Batman in singing rodent form. It's also where he picked up Kenny Loggins' Danger Zone, which he sings at least once every waking hour. There's something very amusing about a two-year-old child singing a song from an 80's classic film. I almost want to teach him to say 'You can be my wing man any time!' but I don't want anyone answering with 'bullshit! You can be mine' because then he might add yet another unpleasant sentence to his growing vocabulary of words that make me blush.

Super Batmunk always wears a cape and sings Danger Zone. It's apparently in the rule book I'm not allowed to read because I'm not a superhero. The cape changes every few hours; sometimes it's an Ikea pillowcase, sometimes it's an old receiving blanket, and sometimes it's fabric I was going to make a pillowcase out of except that would mean I'd need to learn how to sew first, and who wants to do that? I'm busy enough as it is socializing and blogging keeping my house clean and caring for my children. It's not like I exactly have time to...

Sorry. Got a little sidetracked there.

Super Batmunk wears his cape to the park. He wears it to the grocery store. He wears is to bed. He wears his pirate patch (the sticky patch we put on his eye for a couple of hours every day and pray he doesn't take off) and says he's Pirate Super Batmunk. We make cars and planes out of anything we can find so he can whisk around and do whatever it is he does when he's in character. Because, you see, Super Batmunk doesn't appear to have an agenda. He doesn't hold a grudge or appear in any way like a vigilante. He never rescues people or fights bad guys. He simply runs/flies/drives around singing Danger Zone.

That, apparently, is all it takes to be a two-year-old superhero. Wouldn't it be better if every job description was that simple? It's a far cry from my stay-at-home-mom/writer/postpartum doula/social butterfly career. Fitting it all on a business card is virtually impossible.

Yesterday, I tried to help Pirate Super Batmunk stay distracted and thus prevent him from tearing off his eye patch prematurely. I figured a discussion about superpowers would be a good start.

I asked him if he could fly. He said no.

I asked him if he was super strong. He said no.

I asked him if he had super hearing or x-ray vision. He said no.

Super speed? Fireballs shooting out of his hands? Eyeball lasers? Enlarged toenails? No. No. No and no.

Creatively spent, I asked him what, exactly, his superpower was.

'I have spicy arms, Mom.' said Pirate Super Batmunk, picking at his patch.

'You... Huh?'

'Spicy arms. Don't touch them. They're hot.'

Goodness gracious, how I love that boy.