I love my son.
Hands down. Smack your head silly. Make yourself crazy.
Love HIM.
He’s a never-know-what-you-are-going-to-get, always-creating-thinking-dreaming, can’t-wait-to-crack-someone-up-with-a-good-underwear-joke kind of dude.
Today, he’s Spiderman. Tomorrow, he’s Iron Man. Yesterday, he's…
Well, yesterday, I wasn’t quite sure until he struggled to open the car door and said with great angst,
“UGH. This door must be lined with Kryptonite!”
I am firmly convinced that he’ll be some great, creative genius-type so that when I, in my old age, want to dress up as Cinderella, he will think it’s awesome to call an 80-year-old Disney Princess, Mom AND can afford real glass slippers and blue jewels.
A girl can dream, right?
Dreams aside, little needs to be said other than when we entered Party City a few days ago, I was full on-prepared for a few Spiderman shenanigans. A Spidey’s got to do what a Spidey’s got to do. Especially when the mission is as lame as picking up glitter hairspray for your fairy princess sisters.
And so, he DID.
As we checked out, I could see out of the corner of my eye a little flash of blue and red dangling from a cart the size of a Fisher Price replica.
And while we are on the subject, what is with those tiny carts?
Michael’s, Joann’s, Hobby Lobby? Do you not know we might buy more stuff? Frequent your establishment more often?
Wait, what is that faint voice I hear?
It is all the CEO’s answering in unison, “Because, most valued customer, while we love you, by keeping carts smaller we can offset the cost of all the stuff your kids break.”
Oh, yeah.
Which brings us not surprisingly back to Spidey.
Who, while dangling precariously from the ridiculously small cart and looking super Spidey cool, barely looked up at me in time to see my “Mom” face and hear me say “Buddy, I don’t think that is such a good plan…you might…” before he flung backward…
Now I’ll be honest, it was kind of epic.
The feet flown. The 15 for a dollar candy spraying everywhere. The cart turning upside down.
The screams. The shouts. The gasps.
People behind us scattering as if a small candy bomb had detonated.
EPIC.
Maybe it was because it was so ridiculous. Maybe it was because I had slept the night before. Maybe it was just because Jesus mercifully let me see him in that moment.
But I didn’t set my list of priorities like I normally would.
I didn’t pick up the cart or the candy or calm the crowd.
I bent down, drew his little face to mine and gently dabbed the tears pooling in those big brown eyes.
With little fanfare, we picked up the candy together, thanked the lady at the register and walked out the sliding doors as he grabbed my hand and quietly said, “Mom, I was just trying to be a good Spiderman.”
“I know, buddy. But sometimes, even the best Spiderman falls. It’s how he picks himself up that matters.”
The moment the words fell out of my mouth, I knew they weren’t mine.
I knew that a Daddy had been watching His little girl fall and stumble and trip over her Supermom cape all week. I knew He had seen her in spite of the messes she made. I knew He had said with His actions, that the cart, the candy, the crowd be had, He loved her more than the clean-up.
Even though it had been epic. Even though it had been ridiculous. Even though the crowd gasped at the mess.
He saw her.
He bent down.
He dabbed her tears.
And when she reached for His gentle hand and quietly said, "Daddy, I was just trying to be a good mom."
He mercifully answered back.
"I know, Sara. But sometimes, even the best mama falls. It’s how she picks her herself up that really matters.”