Having children turned me into a superhero

It occured to me the other day whilst using my cat like reflexes to catch a falling glass in one hand whilst mopping up spilt juice with the other, that I do indeed have superpowers. I haven’t always had these. No, it appears that producing two offspring has unleashed my inner superhereo. I don’t need to tell you that being a parent is very much like being a superhero. I mean on a daily basis we look like Superman in his civilian clothes, we blend in with the crowd whilst looking like any other person.

However, on the inside is a whole different story;

• x-ray vision. I can see everything. Every toy that has been hidden under the bed, every pair of socks that hasn’t made it to the laundry basket. Every bit of dust and dirt lurking under the sofa. Ok, lets not talk about the Christmas platter of cured meats that youngest found so offensive that she decided to hide under the sofa and that I only found last week, mouldy and nearly walking. My superpowers obviously need fine tuning.

• I don’t feel pain. Labour anyone? Standing on lego barefoot! Also having a threenager that has a fondness for demonstrating her ninja moves (superhero in training) on you means that you have a pretty high tolerance for pain.
• Superlearning powers. I can follow and memorise the instruction booklet for any game, rapido. Also ask me anything about any member of the cbeebies team. I know everything about Mr Tumbles and don’t get me started on Mr Bloom. In Mastermind my specialist subject would be cbeebies presenters.
• Poison Generation. Apparently every healthy meal I try and serve my children is just this, poison.
• The power of persuasion. I can perform Jedi mind tricks on my two. I use my charm to persuade them to tidy-up and switch off the TV. Admittedly this is a superhero power that I need to work on as more often than not it doesn’t work.
• Understanding different languages, in this case threenager speak. I can decipher what threenager is speaking. This is no mean feat. Apparently foof means seatbelt, this did cause much confusion in the early days when everytime we stopped in the car threenager would shout “foof out”.
• Superhero strength. I can carry threenager and all of the shopping from the downstairs garage and up the stairs.
• Superhero invention skill. I can invent a game of changing complexity in the blink of eye, rapidly adapting it to the needs of the audience.
• Empathy. I absorb the moods of my children. I know their moods better then they do.
• Superhearing. I can hear threenager trying to sneak a packet of crips out of the cupboard from another floor. I can hear the sound of arguing from behind closed doors. I can hear feet tip-toeing when they should be in bed.
• Elasticity. Reaching up to the top shelf in the supermarket to retrieve the last packet of Chocolate Shreddies. Another example of my elasticity is holding one threenager having a tantrum whilst filling in a permission slip for oldest.
• Healing powers. The ability to stop a leg that is apparently going to “fall off right now” and the ability to kiss better a knee that has been knocked.
• Freeze time. This is a power that sometimes I seem to unleash without meaning to, especially when playing the same mind-numbing game with youngest for the twentieth time. I look at the clock thinking at least an hour must of passed to find that in fact no time has passed.
• Prerecognition. I can anticipate things happening before they do. I can see when threenager and oldest are about to fall out and I can tell when a melt down is about to happen in a shop.
• Force field bubble. When threenager is having a tantrum I can deploy a force field bubble round myself for self preservation.
• Spiderwebs. Not literally but like spiderman I can leap and weave through skyscrapers and whole towns of houses made from…Lego.
• Shapeshifting. I can go from Mum to cleaner to writer to wife to friend in the blink of an eye.
• Telekinesis. I can catch a cup full of juice mid-air. Hurl a potty at a toddler about to have an accident and take the last smartie from a child without them even realising.
• Telepathy. I can read the thoughts of my two and know when they are brewing trouble.
• Superspeed. I can clear up our living room rapidly, get youngest dressed in 30 seconds flat and complete the school run before you finish reading this post.
• Invisibility. Being a stay at home Mum often means that I can walk about undetected.
• Superhero calling. Oldest and youngest only have to tip their heads back and call my name and I come flying in.
• I’m like Superman. No I don’t have the power of flight but I do wear big pants. Enough said.

What superhero powers do you have?