At his request, each morning three-year-old Ray’s mother pinned a bath towel to the back shoulders of his size two T-shirt.
Immediately in his young imaginative mind the towel became a brilliant magic blue and red cape.
And he became Superman.
Outfitted each day in his “cape,” Ray’s days were packed with adventure and daring escapades.
He was Superman.
This fact was clearly pointed out last fall when his mother enrolled him in kindergarten class.
During the course of the interview, the teacher asked Ray his name.
“Superman,” he answered politely and without pause.
The teacher smiled, cast an appreciative glance at his mother, and asked again, “Your real name, please.”
Again, Ray answered, “Superman.”
Realizing the situation demanded more authority, or maybe to hide amusement, the teacher closed her eyes for a moment, then in a voice quite stern, said, “I will have to have your real name for the records.”
Sensing he’d have to play straight with the teacher, Ray slid his eyes around the room, hunched closer to her, and patting a corner of frayed towel at his shoulder, answered in a voice hushed with conspiracy, “Clark Kent.”
My three year old son had a lot of problems with potty training; and I was on him constantly.
One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room.
While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course, I checked my seven month old daughter, and she was clean. The I realized that Matt had not asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him and he said, “No.”
I kept thinking, “Oh Lord, that child has had an accident and I didn’t have any clothes with me.” Then I said, “Matt, are you sure you did not have an accident?”
“No,” he replied.
I just knew that he must have, because the smell was getting worse. Sooooo…. I asked one more time, “Matt, did you have an accident?”
Matt jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled…. “SEE, MOM, IT’S JUST FARTS!!!”
While 100 people nearly choked to death on their tacos, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down to eat his food as if nothing happened. I was mortified!
Some kind elderly people made me feel a lot better, when they came over and thanked me for the best laugh they had ever had!!!
Another old gentleman stopped us in the parking lot as we were leaving, bent over to my son and said:
“Don’t worry son, my wife accuses me of the same thing all the time… I just never had the nerve to make the point like you did.”
