Superpowers

First off, no one told us we would get superpowers when we became dads.

I should have been suspicious that this might be the case several years ago when Keith Packard leapt across a fifteen foot room and snatched a piece of clear cellophane out of his daughter's mouth. The cellophane was invisible to me, and I was standing right next to her.

My superpower is judo-chopping friendly German Shepherds as they rambunctiously jump up. This happened with my sister Julie's dog, Sierra, while Julie was holding Arthur. I swear it was spinal cord reaction. Before Sierra hit the ground I had turned to Julie and said, "I'm sorry, that was a reflex." I'm not sure who was more surprised: Julie, Sierra, or me.

Just for the record -- because I know there are some stories floating around -- when Julie came near Arthur a little later on with a cup of tea (which it turned out afterwards was cold) I did not judo-chop her.



Mark is jealous because his superpower is the ability to unflinchingly suck spit-up baby formula out of Arthur's nose with his mouth. And not being sick afterwards.
Mark's secondary superpower is being able to rattle off "diapers, formula, and baby-wipes" without thinking whenever anyone asks us what we need.


With chagrin I'm noticing that the Infant-Military-Industrial Complex is trying to slither its tentacles into our home. For some reason Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger are on the front of the diapers we use, and there's a Gerber Baby looking up at us from one of the receiving blanket labels. At least the hospital didn't want to stamp Arthur with a hospital logo (although now that I think about it, he did have to wear a security tag on his ankle while he was there).


To counter marketing schemes, I've continued work on the baby mobile, which Mark now refers to as "The MOMA project." Mostly because it's big and looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would have installed. I think Mark was a little surprised at how big an icosidodecahedron is; all the polyhedrons have the same unit side, so the pentagons make all the dodecahedron-based polyhedra soccer ball sized. I still need to make an icosohedron and an octagon to complete the set of Platonic solids, and I'd like to make a snub cube and then I'll be done cutting and pasting paper.