Occasionally we go to McDonald’s for a happy meal. You know, for special occasions (special occasions might be a play date with Daddy but also include nights I haven’t made it out into the freezing slushy, muck to get groceries.) It’s a bonus when the free toy is something really cool, like a few weeks back when my three-year-old Cole got a Batman figurine. It had little wings that attached into the back, not very securely of course, but he was enjoying it immensely. For the next few days he wanted to bring Batman everywhere with us. Seeing how much he enjoyed his new action hero I felt torn. I wanted to say, “Sure bring it!” knowing it would keep him happy and entertained. On the flip side I knew that it was only a matter of time before the wings fell off into a pile of something, never to be retrieved, so I felt a need to guard us from the sadness that would surely follow.

A few days later I’d given the go-ahead to bring Batman on the bus and as I knew they would, the wings fell off. Not just under the seat, but through the middle accordion section onto the street below. I don’t know what pile it landed in, but the never to be retrieved part had come to pass. He cried and whined and asked me to look again. I tried to explain that looking around on the bus floor would do no good, because the wings were a few blocks back on the street, maybe they had even been knocked off by the passing cars into the river. This made him more sad of course. I don’t know why I try to be reasonable and tell it like it is, it never works! Instead I should take a lesson from my kids. A few minutes later he started playing with his toy again, making him fly, using sound effects that must come standard with little boys, because he’s never heard me make such a realistic noise when I try to pretend I’m flying. He came to me and said,

“Mom it’s okay that Batman’s wings got lost. He can still fly.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, because Batman is magic, like Santa.”