Googie's Superhero Award

With this year's Oscars behind us, the time is right to focus our attention on the much coveted Superhero Award.  My name is Googie, and I am your emcee.  Welcome to our show.

Actually, the show is coming to you on tape-delay, as the actual event occurred two days ago.  Last Saturday, our local Parks and Recreation Department hosted a Superhero Party for children ages 2 through 7.  Held at a convention center in one of our city parks, the party consisted of three large rooms filled with games and craft activities for children to engage in on a walk-up basis. 

Manned by young men and women in superhero attire, the carnival-like stations invited children, most of whom were also costumed, to deflect balls, throw foam mallets at balloons, or shoot flying disks at targets depicting the evil Joker.  At the craft tables the kids could choose stickers and markers to decorate cardboard masks, swords, and shields, or to put their personal touches on a fabric cape. 

They could get tattoos, run an obstacle course, or get their pictures taken with the Superhero cast.  In short, the party was an hour and a half of pure Superhero-themed fun topped off with a cookie and a juice drink.  (At this point, just let me pause to thank our sponsors for the hours of effort that went into creating such a fun, memorable time for these kids.)  And now, back to our program.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure and self-appointed task to introduce to you the three finalists for Googie's Superhero Award.  First, we have the inimitable Pooh, clad as Spiderman from the shoulders down, but jauntily sporting the mask he colored at the party:

Next is Miss Sooby, who purports the highly contested theory that Buzz Lightyear could, in fact, under that space suit and all that buzzamatazz, have been female:

And finally, the reticent Bootsie, illustrating that even Supergirl can suffer a moment of weakness.  However, after receiving a much-needed dose of Kryptonite from her mother's pants leg, you will be relieved to know, she recovered sufficiently to hurl a foam bat-a-rang and knock over a tower of upside-down solo cups in true Supergirl fashion:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you have all been waiting for.  Although all three are deserving, only one of these three finalists will be awarded Googie's Superhero Award.  Drum roll, please.  And the winner is--

Wait!  It seems we have a write-in candidate.  Yes, folks, yet another Superhero has clawed her way to the top of the competitive heap to garner this most prestigious honor.  And here she is:

Yes!  I am proud to announce that Googie's Superhero Award goes to Cookie, the kids' mother.  Cookie braved the aftermath of a huge winter snowstorm to undertake a three-hour one-way drive with four children ages five and under just so that we could all go to this party and make this wonderful memory. 

In the picture she appears to be holding up a vehicle, but I guarantee you this is nothing compared to the weight she shoulders every single day in the anything-but-simple act of being mama to the other three finalists and their baby brother.

Take a bow, Cookie.  You are a Superhero in every sense of the word.







  
 

A Super-Hero Turns Four

Dearest Little Pooh:

On this, your fourth birthday, I am playing with the present I had planned to bring you today.  It is a soft, squishy Spiderman toy that features "over 15 sounds and phrases" when you push the spider picture on his tummy.  "You're my crime-fighting buddy!" he will say one time.  "You're web-tacular!" he will say the next. 

I am not able to spend your birthday with you this year because your mama has the flu.  I think it may be the first birthday I have missed for any of you grandkids.  But don't worry.  Our celebration won't be cancelled; it will just be delayed for a little while.  Spiderman is very patient that way.

It has been my pleasure to watch you learn and grow and become your own little person this past year.  Although you share your sisters' love for story and song, it is clear to see that you would rather be on the move than sit still to draw or paint or do other crafty things. You would rather lick icing off the knife than decorate the cookie.  Clearly, you prefer action to artistry.

You loved your role as a mean, sword-bearing mouse in The Nutcracker, but didn't much like being one of only two boys in the summer dance recital.  You are much more comfortable dressed as Spiderman or Batman than in a white dress shirt with a red bow tie.    

Why tap and twirl, you must wonder, when you can run like the wind?  After all, the infamous, underwear-clad Naked Man, the super-hero you invented yourself, wouldn't be caught dead in tap shoes and dress slacks.

Mama tells me that she has bought you Spiderman presents too, and that your cake also follows through with the super-hero theme.  I imagine you are spending the day wearing your Spiderman costume, the one I bought for $1 at Wal-mart during the after-Halloween clearance sale last year.

Even though it is about four sizes too big, it made you so happy that I am pretty sure it was the best buck I ever spent.  I hope that, today of all days, you can wear whatever you want to wear, do whatever you want to do, and be whoever you want to be.  This is your day. 

Happy Birthday, sweet boy.  It has been four years since you first spun a web around our hearts and trapped them for good. You are a special blessing to our family, and in these four short years you have already contributed much toward saving this old world.