The other night I was engaging in my usual cycle of procrastination, guilt, and self-loathing. I was sat in the middle of my living room floor, surrounded by piles of laundry which I’d already had to rewash because I’d left them in the laundry baskets for so long that they were wrinkled beyond salvation. There were dirty dishes in the kitchen sink; toys dangerously littered the floors, hiding in the shadows of the hallway waiting to attack at a moment’s notice. The kids were asleep, finally; I had time to do all the things I’d been itching to do all day.

Then I turned on the tv. It will be nice to have some background noise, I told myself. I changed my mind several times about what I wanted to watch, in the background, of course. Parenthood? Too serious, Heart of Dixie? Too hunky, Sherlock? Too British. The list of excuses was longer than the list of options.

The laundry rolled its eyes and called me a “time waster.” It was probably right.

Eventually I found the movie The Fantastic Four, and it had only just started. Huzzah! For those of you who aren’t familiar with this crime-fighting quartet, they are a group of scientists who were struck by cosmic rays while on a mission in outer space. After their exposure to the radioactive planetary particles, they began to discover that they had developed strange abilities: super stretchy limbs, invisibility, spontaneous combustion, and hulkish (not the green kind) strength.

They were now superheroes.

As I was gradually sucked farther and farther into this movie, laundry be damned, I started noticing that some of their powers seemed oddly familiar. Wait a minute, I have some of those powers too! Slowly, I began to formulate a theory in my mind.

My kids must be radioactive.

After years of prolonged exposure to their excretions, I have started to develop certain abilities similar to those portrayed in the film. Who knew this was really a documentary about parenting!

Each of the characters in the movie possessed one of my mommy super-abilities.

 mrfantastic

Mr Fantastic– What mom hasn’t developed the ability to contort her body into all sorts of unnatural positions? For example, in the car I frequently manage to drive with one hand on the wheel, the other hand passing cookies to the baby in the rear facing car seat directly behind my seat. Then I can stretch the other way and pick up the toy car that has finally rolled under the front passenger seat after the three year old dropped it for the fourteenth time.

 invisible

Invisible Girl– I often wonder whether I have spontaneously disappeared when trying to attract the attention of a stubborn toddler. When my three year old is playing games on his ipad, watching tv, or just feels like getting a rise out of me, he will look right through me. As if I’m not there.  I have even gone so far as to place myself between him and the tv so he’ll listen, but he just cranes his neck to see around me. One time he stretched so far he fell out of the la-z-boy. 

I guess he hasn’t developed the super stretchy power.

torch 

Human Torch– On days when I haven’t had enough sleep (all days of the week ending with a Y), I can go from zero to nuclear meltdown in a matter of seconds. We’ll just be going about business as usual: the kids causing carnage and me following them around with a dust pan.

Suddenly I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I’ll explode if I hear one more whine, one more shriek, or have to thwart one more attempt to crawl into my lap while I’m on the toilet. This morning, they were both climbing on me in the bathroom, fighting over my lap as they went. Finally I snapped. That’s it! No one touches mommy!!!   

Boom.

 thing

The Thing– I have developed superhuman strength since having children. I can carry a week’s worth of groceries into the house in one trip, because going back would cause the baby to melt down and the three year old to lock the garage door (yes, this has happened to me!). I once walked out of Target carrying my obligatory $80 worth of trinkets, my baby strapped to my chest, a diaper bag slung over my shoulder, my purse, and a tantruming 40 pound toddler in tow.

Just another day in the life of Supermommy.  When my kids have all grown, I’m considering getting a job in the furniture delivery industry.

Have you developed any comic book-style superpowers since having children? I’d love to hear about them.

Written by Mary Widdicks
Blogger at http://www.outmannedmommy.com
Twitter at @MaryWiddicks.
Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/outmannedmommy

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Wannabe's are Guest Authors to BLUNTmoms. They might be one-hit wonders, or share a variety of posts with us. They "may" share their names with you, or they might write as "anonymous" but either way, they are sharing their stories and their opinions on our site, and for that we are grateful.

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