Suddenly Super

Ok, I'll admit-- Living in this splendid city of scholars, inventors and ...well, yes... Nobel Peace Prize winners is thrilling in ways I can't describe. It's hilarious how it actually becomes mundane and routine to pass inscriptions on old stone walls marking such places as the spot where "Boyle's Law" was discovered, or to meet new friends who are several years younger than I am but have already managed to live in an assortment of countries while speaking a handful of languages (fluently!) and just sold their "first start-up company" for a bazillion dollars. (They say these things to you as if they're talking about where they went to high school or what they ate for dinner last night-- just like "Oh, yeah... hasn't everyone done that?" but laced with humility and absent of any judgment. A lovable breed of awe-inspiring, SuperHero-ish, brilliant people. I'm not certain they're actually human, but we'll assume so for now.)

So, it's wonderful. Truly, it is.

Still, sooner or later this machine gun assault-of-the-senses (how everyone and everything around me is fascinating) starts to make one like myself feel a little less-than-extraordinary.

• Do I speak another language? Texas redneck? Downtown-Dallas Ebonics? Cuz, that there's about all I got, yo.
  
• Have I invented anything? I *do* have a detailed sketch of a cutting-edge trash bag design that has potential. I'm looking into trashy patents.
• Have I started-up any companies? No, but I did have a rockin' business plan for giving away litters upon litters of my cat's kittens on the doorsteps of popular grocery stores when I was a kid. We even gave away a free can of cat food just to seal the deal. Now that's business mindedness!
• Any contribution to the arts? Hmm... that sketch pad that I mentioned buying a few posts ago, with hopes of gleefully sipping tea while sketching from the back garden?... It was recently discovered and attacked by two pair of pudgy hands with some nearly-dry markers, Disney Princess stickers and a hybrid of other objects held on by tacky glue-sticks. So, no.

Therefore, content to just be among the amazing even if my own life stories don't inspire awe from my peers, I carried on until the events of last night caused me to recognize something about myself. It was 3:23am and I was in a very deep sleep. From out of nowhere, down the hall, behind two semi-closed doors and from beneath a down comforter, I heard my youngest in her quietest voice utter the words, "I need to go potty." **BOY** you should have SEEN ME MOVE!! In less than 2.73 seconds, I had jolted out of my bed, run down the hall, scooped her up, maneuvered 2 awkward steps on our narrow Euro-staircase (with her on my hip, bleary-eyed from her sudden extraction from the warmth of her bed) ran to the toilet, lowered the training seat and had that babygirl sitting on the potty before you could say "BLAMMO!!" Whew! (Poor Julia was probably still in a REM cycle.)

Now... if you've ever changed wet sheets in the middle of the night, or had to search for the clean ones to replace them, or had to line-dry a whole bed set the next day... you might understand my motivation to get her where she needed to be to do what she needed to do! When you're "Mom-of-two-year-old," it's an all-out war against bed-wetting and this Mama doesn't back off the line... Especially not at 3:23am when the other team comes with all its might!

Score one for Mom. I was proud. And I had actually discovered something brilliant about myself in the process: I have acute-middle-of-the-night-hearing and cat-like reflexes-- even from a comatose sleep! (Hey-- when you're living as a commoner in a world of "Supers," you have to claim the victories as they come, no matter how small they may seem.) So, I put my freshly emptied 2-year-old back in her cozy bed, walked back to my room and laid my head down with a smile on my face.

Who knew? I am an Oxford Super, after all.