Super-baby

Tyler held onto his own bottle (View More Photos)

Tyler had his 4 month wellness checkup today. The purpose was to weigh him, measure him, and answer any questions that we had. Unfortunately, I had a pretty full day today and couldn’t make it. Instead, Sarah had to call me and update me on how it went when it was over with.

As of today, Tyler weighs 20 pounds and 10 ounces, and measures at 27.5 inches tall... or roughly the size of a 9-month old. Our family doctor actually asked Sarah how tall I was. Sarah told her that I’m 5 foot 10 (I’m 5 foot 11.5, for the record). I’m also a meager 165 pounds. This little son of mine is already 1/8 my weight, and 38% of my height. The doc simply said that we must have super genes.

Tyler's Height Tracker

Tyler's Weight Tracker

This really ticked me off. I’ve spent most of my childhood and – so far – ALL of my adulthood believing that it was my destiny to become a super-hero. I’m 30 years old. With every day that passes, I am increasingly faced with the possibility that it simply isn’t going to happen. I’ve had days that I believed “The Matrix” was a movie about what I would become one day. Am I now supposed to believe that those movies were nothing more than a fictional story? I just don’t know if I can accept that. I’ve been practicing my “I know kung-fu” and “whoa” lines so that I’d get them right when the time came for me to spar with my mentor and jump from one rooftop to another, respectively.

Now I have to come to terms with the fact that I may not be destined to become a superhero and that my son may have gotten the gift that was meant for ME! It’s not fair. I never thought I’d be put in a position where I would have to live vicariously through my son. I’m going to have to throw him in front of a train so that I can watch HIM not get hurt. I'll have to watch a bad guy shoot Tyler in the eyeball on a building rooftop to witness the bullet crumple and fall away from HIS stronger-than-steel retina. It should have been me. I have to admit, though, that it would be super cool to be able to say, “Tyler, fly me to Best Buy. I don’t feel like driving there today because I’m in a hurry.” Or “Tyler, use your x-ray vision and tell me how long the line is at Applebee’s.” Still, it wouldn’t be as awesome as doing those things myself, instead of having to use Tyler as my own personal aircraft.

How am I, as a seemingly normal person, supposed to raise a superhero? There’s a whole new level of “right and wrong” that I have to teach him. Anger management will also need to be addressed. I certainly don’t want Tyler to destroy an entire supermarket just because Sarah won’t buy him a squirtgun. And how do you discipline a child who could crush you with his bare hands? He could probably make me go insane just by thinking it.

My only solution, at this point, is to strap him to a table in my yet-to-be-built dungeon until I can fully understand his powers. I’m going to need to invest in some beakers, bubbly green liquids, and some swirly glass tubes. I’ll extract his DNA sequence using a highly scientific method of pricking his finger with a needle and putting a drop of blood on one of those glass slide things that scientists put under a microscope. I’ll cure his pain by the other highly scientific method of kissing the boo-boo and applying a Bob the Builder band-aid to the DNA extraction site. Then, using plans downloaded off the internet, I’ll construct a gamma-ray burst gun and a DNA re-sequencer to enhance the powers and introduce them to my genetic code.

I’m sure there’s something morally wrong with making one’s own son the human equivalent of a lab rat. But, I promise to offset that evilness by capturing at least 4 bank robbers, and 2 carjackers. For good measure, I’ll even save a cat from a tree and return Mr. Fluffles to the little old lady that accidentally let him out of the house.

Destiny…. here I come!!!