Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Pshew! Pshew! -- Liberating the Basement



Scott has several superhero costumes that he has accumulated over the past few years of Halloweens and Christmas presents. As it turns out, his old Spiderman costume is just about the right size for Katie. She was thrilled to try it on and immediately seized a sword to be like him in his Power Ranger Samurai costume. Scott would have none of that and quickly righted this grevious wrong, explaining to her that "Spiderman does not carry a sword -- instead, he shoots webs by pointing his fingers like this."

Katie could not imitate the complicated gesture. Scott said, "just use your pointer finger then. And make a web sound like this -- pshew!" She happily complied.

They wanted me to be the bad guy but I really wasn't in the mood. I recalled a tradition we had in our house growing up where my older brother C would take up arms to "liberate the basement", clearing the cellar of hostile forces in close urban combat. I told them to go downstairs and fight the bad guys down there.

Scott said, "There are no bad guys down there." I told him, "But what if all the dolls and stuffies were bad guys?" His eyes immediately lit up at this possibility. "Come on Katie," he said. "Let's go down and fight all the animals and dolls that are downstairs."

And that is how liberty and justice was finally extended to the far reaches of our basement level.

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