Sam's latest obsession is superheroes. He loves to wear his Spiderman shirt. At night we read him kids' books on Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. He loves memorizing the different superheroes' names and learning their powers and limitations. He even knows the names of some of the slightly more obscure superheroes. For example, he knows Angel and Daredevil. We recently explained to Sam what it means to be blind when we were talking about Daredevil.
Two days ago I gave Sam five pairs of big boy superhero underwear. I tried to get him to wear a pair of his Thor underwear to Grandma's house, but he told me he would wait until he got to Grandma's to wear it. Yesterday he still was refusing to wear his new underwear, telling Grandma he would wear it at his house. My theory on this puzzling behavior is that he enjoys keeping his special new underwear brand new and that he enjoys looking at each pair and its featured character, something you can't do as well when you are wearing it!
I have mixed feelings about this new superhero phase. What happened to Thomas the train? I'm even looking longingly back on the days when the only thing he wanted to watch was Max and Ruby or Caillou. That is a sentiment I never thought I would express as I find both Ruby and Caillou to be extremely annoying.
Almost four just seems a young age to be so interested in superheroes. I know, I know what you are thinking. You read him books? You buy him underwear? What did you think would happen? The truth is I like the characters, too, and I love hearing him excitedly telling me all about Wolverine or Captain America. I just don't like the fighting. I cringe when I see his Batman or Spiderman action figures fighting the bad guys on the kitchen floor. A couple of days ago I heard him say the word "gun" for the first time when he was pretending a broken wooden piece of his clothes hamper was a gun. When Sam showed me his gun I replied, "I don't like guns" and walked away.
Since I have been somewhat worried about the influence of this latest obsession on Sam's moral development, I was thrilled when it recently became time for Sam to attend Vacation Bible School at the local Methodist church where he goes to Mother's Day Out. I breathed a little sigh of relief as Sam came home with a cross necklace he had strung and stories of Noah and his ark and other Biblical characters. Here, I thought, are some good wholesome influences to counter any negative effects of all these superheroes.
In the car after his last day of Bible school, Sam said, "If you follow Jesus you can change the world." "Is that true, Mommy?" he then asked. Thus began an impromptu discussion about Jesus, covering his relationship to God, his work on Earth, and even touching upon his death and resurrection. A rewarding topic to be sure, but one so heavy at times that I found myself wishing we could go back to talking about Noah and the ark.
I was explaining to Sam that Jesus healed the blind, allowing them to see again, when he asked, "Like Daredevil?" "Yes," I responded, "like Daredevil." I then had a brief moment when I could see the world through my son's eyes, a world where Daredevil and Jesus co-existed. No wonder Sam was suddenly interested in Jesus. In his mind He seemed just like another superhero and not just any superhero, but one that would enable Sam to change the world as well. I had a sudden mental image of Jesus inside an ancient dwelling with a dirt floor, healing the eyes of the rather shiny red Daredevil. Well, this was something I had never pictured before, but not too surprising considering that parenthood is taking me to all kinds of places I've never been to before. For now we'll just let Daredevil and Jesus co-exist. Sam is just almost four after all.
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