I’d like to tell you about one of my special powers.
I can sleep through shrieking car alarms and bands of rowdy teenagers partying outside our bedroom window on a Friday night but when it comes to my kids it’s like my ears suddenly upgrade to Superhero Superhearing.
Sarah has a history of bloody noses and she knows what to do when she wakes up with a bleeder. She doesn’t panic like she used to but the other night she couldn’t find the kleenex.
“I need a tissue,” she said. Her voice was calm and quiet as it broke through the dark space between our bedrooms. I heard it on a completely different level, almost as if I was listening outside of myself. I threw my duvet to the side in a big black arc and bounded out of bed, somehow managing to leap over the laundry basket and not crack my toe on our cast iron doorstop.
Sarah was sitting up, holding her nose. It wasn’t bleeding, just runny. I felt around the bottom of our linen closet for a new box of kleenex and brought it to her. She blew her nose and took a minute or two to settle back down.
I stroked her hair and lay my lips on that warm, sweet-smelling part of her neck. “Thank you mumma,’ she murmured. “I love you.”
What are your superpowers? I would love to hear about them.
