Updated November 8, 2022
Five years ago this summer, two nurturing nannies tenderly carried a tentative 3-year-old into the center of the Wuhan Civil Affairs room in Wuhan City, China … and our little team couldn’t have fallen faster or more deeply in love.
In an effort to prepare us to welcome and love on this child whose mother loved him so much that she swaddled him in a blue blanket and left him in a hospital garden where she knew he would be quickly treated and found, these precious women briefed us on the personality traits of the boy they had known and loved for all three years of his little life.
Long Long, as they called him, was shy.
Tentative.
Introverted.
Reserved.
He was afraid of loud noises, and chaos?
His kryptonite.
Until, apparently, he spent 24 hours in the presence of pure pandemonium.
Because after just one day on this totally obnoxious, inside-voice-challenged, testosterone-filled train wreck that is our maniacal team, the boy we were told was terrified of strangers was singing down streets and serenading random guests in hotel lobbies and wooing us all with THIS (very loud) charisma and charm.
(See the video of that sweet face, now that it’s been five years, for the first time ever HERE.)
#anotheronebitesthedust
Once you go extrovert, there’s just no turning back.
This month, on our fifth World Cerebral Palsy Day with the charismatic kid who makes CP look like a fashionable runway accessory, we have never in our lives believed more in the phrase that became the premise of the Of Capes and Combat Boots blog we launched a year before Superhero 4 ever even came into our home.
Special needs are just superpowers in disguise.
And THIS bright, bubbly boy who stands constantly in the spotlight and simply steals the show effortlessly flaunts them ALL.
Superpower 1: Unfiltered, unadulterated, unbridled JOY
Superhero 4 isn’t just a beam of sunshine — he’s like his own solar system full.
This extreme extrovert just loves people and loves life, and his zest for all.the.things is just endless. He speaks almost solely in exclamation marks, and he’s the boy who almost annoyingly finds the wonder in every situation.
“We’re going to the DUMP?!”
“I get to COOK?!”
“Daddy take me to the CAR WASH?!”
His enthusiasm is just contagious, his belly laugh, even moreso. (When his bestie Superhero 3 gets him going, ear plugs are sometimes required to control the decibels of joy that threaten eardrums inside our home.)
Although there are few things in this world Superhero 4 DOESN’T adore (mainly silence), he’s especially fond of cooking (especially his favorite dishes of dumplings, Pad Thai and Poke bowls, none of which this very white girl makes well), tent camping (all the people without any of the distractions stuck in one tent together … with HIM), swimming (he can now cross the deep end of the pool alone!), Cub Scouts (you have never before seen a more excited practicer of the Pledge of Allegiance with two fingers in the air), board games (Uno, Faze 10 and Monopoly are the current faves), Pokemon (which he recently pilfered obtained from disinterested brothers who are too cool now for collecting cards), Legos (Superheroes 2, 3 and 4 still construct creative buildings upstairs for hours), family gaga ball on the trampoline and the game of Prodigy, which, by child four, we are happy to pretend is an educational math computer game and not a ruse for children to play electronics. (Listen, we’re in our 40s now. We’re all good parented out.)
And people.
ALL. THE. PEOPLE.
This raging extrovert has never met a stranger, and he loves nothing more than laughing and exploring and adventuring and being mischievous with new victims of his cuteness. He has exactly 3,593 brainwashed and love-stricken adults at his beckon call and 5,031 best friends, including an entire entourage of girls who fought over who got to carry his canes to the van at the end of the school day all last year and two girls (and no boys) who he chose to take on his last day of 1st grade date. (“Mama, I can’t choose just one friend. Superhero 4 hurt feelings. I PWEEEEAASSEEEE take two?” he pleaded right before two of the most gorgeous girls you’ve ever seen stepped into my van and sat on either side of the little playa’s car seat.)
Though he’s a schmoozer for sure, Superhero 4 legitimately loves learning about the hearts of each person he meets. He actually genuinely cares, and even though his language and communication abilities trail that of a typical 8 year old (although Speech Therapy Year 5 is working wonders), his compassion and emotions are so far ahead.
Of all the kids, he asks the most authentically curious questions of the people he loves, and he truly, genuinely cares to get to know the people in his realm. He’s the first one to ask Super-Spouse and me about our days, our trials and our triumphs, and he asks his friends and teachers so many questions that by the time he hops into the van at the end of the school day, it takes us almost the whole ride to the next location just to hear a full report of all the things his new playground playmates love. And if he’s talking about his BFF Isaiah, it could take DAYS to hear about both his friend’s passions AND all the plans they have for straight-up mischief in this life. (See exhibit A.)
At the end of the day, drinking in this big, beautiful life with as many people as possible by his side (and in his audience) is his absolute greatest joy.
Superpower 2: Child-like faith
The first time Superhero 4 asked if he could be baptized, we sat down and held a family conversation.
“Why do you want to be baptized?” we asked the then 5-year-old superhero who loved God but had just barely learned to pronounce His name.
“Because me want to go swimming with Jesus!” he proclaimed.
We had to explain to him that a Holy Spirit pool playdate wasn’t a good enough reason to be baptized and told him we’d love to revisit the conversation when he was ready.
Over the last three years, we’ve watched the boy who didn’t even know the name of Jesus five years ago grow to love and trust Him in a way that now brings Super-Spouse and me to our knees.
He loves Sunday School more than he loves ice cream and comes racing out in his walker each week to summarize the lesson of the day.
He prays passionately with this sincere and heartfelt hope that reminds us what it’s like to have a REAL relationship with our awesome Lord.
He loves his friends and family with this fierce Holy Spirit kind of love, and He trusts Him with the big and the little in his life.
After taking his first math test of second grade, this sweet superhero jumped in the car and exclaimed, “Mama! I prayed to Jesus to help me on my math test, and He hear-ed me! I got a 98!” (Listen, only JESUS CHRIST ALONE could have pulled THAT one off, because the boy could not even add to 13 when he left the house that morning.)
This year, with his new ability to not only comprehend the Gospel but live it out, we knew He was ready.
So in August, on the week of his 5th anniversary inside our family, this special superhero made a public proclamation that he wanted to be a member of the family of God.
As I watched the boy who waited three entire years for a forever family to call his own emerge from the water in his proud daddy’s hands, I just couldn’t hold it together.
Because there standing behind this boy who faced his first three years alone were 45 different friends and family members who knew and adored this little treasure and had come to this special baptism Sunday just for him.
Superhero 4 might not get the privilege of living out life beside his precious biological family, but by the grace of God, he WILL get to live the rest of his life beside the loving, embracing, encouraging family of God.
Superpower 3: Hilarity … which sometimes just looks more like a lack of a human filter (tomato, tomah-to)
Superhero 4’s best friend’s mama may have said it best the day she watched these two peas in a pod race — one with a walker and one with a heart condition — up and down a middle school cross country course, weaving in and out of parents, all while commentating an entire race, cheering wildly for their siblings and simultaneously ranking the “whoosh” factors of the runners’ hairstyles.
“Superhero 4 … he’s just an entire experience,” she remarked.
The kind that smothers you in irresistible adorableness and uncontainable joy while simultaneously assaulting you with mostly inappropriate but sometimes hilarious thoughts in ways that make you both crack up and cringe at the same time.
Kind of like a hibachi chef, or maybe a YouTube star. (“Listen, baby,” Super-Spouse told me half-seriously last night. “I know we don’t do social media [other than this blog], but if we could just get Superhero 4 on the Tik Tok, I bet I could retire!” Which is apparently badly needed of someone so old he puts “the” before Tik Tok.)
One day, on our morning summer trail run, Superhero 4 noticed from his place in the stroller that one member of the team had consumed a few too many bowls of black bean chili the night before.
“What that sound?” he asked, looking around at the brothers running and biking beside him to investigate. “It sound like a machine gun!” He then pointed to the person he believed to be the culprit. “That like diarrhea! Like diarrhea of a wimpy kid!”
When Super-Spouse and I were out of town for the surprise birthday retreat he planned, our dear friend brought a meal for the boys. When Superhero 4 profusely thanked her, she told him it was her honor. He then looked her up and down and, without missing a beat, asserted, “You have no honor.”
When we spent a week comforting friends who’d lost fathers and attending funerals of kids who’d lost grandparents, we spent the drive to a football game talking to the boys about the importance of treasuring the people in our lives, especially our grandparents, for the fleeting moments we get them. Superhero 4 nodded, opened the van door and raced in his walker over to Grandma, who was already seated on the sidelines of his big brother’s game. “Grandma, Mom says I have to snuggle you,” he said sweetly as he wrapped his arms around her. “Because you only have LITTTTLE lifespan left,” he then inserted, rubbing his two fingers together with one hand and patting her back with the other.
One day last month, I returned home after a long day and did what I do after EVERY long day – threw on a robe and slippers, only I didn’t change out of my hat and sweats first because I live in a house full of boys too blind to properly aim at the toilet, so I figure they’re also too blind to notice my evening attire. Within minutes, Superhero 4 noticed my fashion blunder, disappeared into his room and came out wearing THIS.
He then held his back, bent over and uttered under his breath, “Look at me, I Mama, I have such a hard day I not get dressed.”
Then, with a twinkle in his eye and arms he threw around my neck, he adorably proclaimed, “I just joking! You have hard day. I just want to match you and help you cook!”
Another day, I left two of the kids home for just enough time to run another kid to and from school. I returned to Superhero 4 with four little red circles branded on his forehead. When I asked him what happened, he shrugged his shoulders and explained, “Brother and I just want to see what happens when we suction Legos on our foreheads.”
Answer: You get purple Lego-shaped hickeys. The week before picture day.
Possibly the most shining Superhero 4 moments, however, revolve around body parts.
Like the night we read Romans 2 as a family at the dinner table. Which led to Superhero 4 asking alllllllllll about circumcision. Which led to a conversation about why people “cut off their penises,” followed by an intense family debate about foreskins and the benefits and drawbacks of circumcision, which ended with one superhero stating, “It looks like I just got the short end of the stick.”
Or the day Superhero 4 went to dinner at my dear friend’s house and, at a table full of high school girls, genuinely and curiously asked her husband, with his long arms and legs, if he also had another long body part.
Or the day Superhero 4 stumbled upon a Christian marriage book with a three-letter word he can now read on the cover.
“Why you need a BOOK in this house?! You not know how to do it right or some-phing? You gonna practice that with Daddy TONIGHT?!”
Thank you, PA, for instituting the “talk-about-all-things-using-correct-anatomical-terms-at-an-age-appropriate-level” rule. We are essentially a walking second grade sex education class over here.
To the brother who overheard the chaos and came tearing into the room where I was keeled over in simultaneous humiliation and uproarious laughter at the interrogation methods of an 8 year old, the answer is no. In the sweet name of Jesus, we cannot afford to “make” any more brothers for your amusement.
This outnumbered girl cannot handle any more male body parts, or interrogations, in this life.
Superpower 4: Gratitude and lavish LOVE
There are six words you cannot spend six minutes in a room with Superhero 4 without hearing.
“Thank you,” and “Love you SO MUCH!”
Although his speech might be delayed, this tender boy’s ability to use words to communicate his thankfulness and affection is nowhere close.
Superhero 4 utters these words as we enter and as we leave, when we’re up and when we’re down. He says them every time we help and every time we hug, and we can’t put on a shoe or pick out a sweatshirt without this grateful boy thanking us 20 times.
As a kid who spent his first three years of life without a forever family, he has an uncanny sense of appreciation and gratitude for every little thing, and he rarely takes a favor, chore, event or even dinner for granted (although some might not consider “This not THAT terrible, mama — you try super hard! I super proud of you!” to be a compliment).
He’s the first to compliment me anytime I get dressed (mostly because he’s in shock), and if you ever want to feel beautiful, you just have to show up in our family room wearing something other than running pants and he’ll ooh and awe over you for DAYS. (You’re welcome for setting the bar so low.)
He loves snuggles and hugs and cuddles and physical affection, and he’s the first to dole it out to any human in the home who looks to be lacking.
His thank you notes are precious (when you can read them), and his heart, even moreso.
If gratitude is an attitude, he’s mastered the thankfulness mindset in this life.
Superpower 5: Patience, perseverance and the power to overcome
His profile and his file identified him by the things that orphanages find most pertinent for prospective families to know.
His age.
His sex.
His diagnoses.
On a photo listing, then, “Cerebral Palsy,” “immobility” and “cognitive delays” became synonymous with Superhero 4’s name, like attached unwanted identities he carried around his first three years of life like a backpack of boulders.
But though those may have been the world’s identifiers for this 3-year-old boy who waited for a forever family for far too long, those sure weren’t God’s names for this handy-capable little joy.
His names were Chosen.
Beloved.
Treasured.
Redeemed.
Fighter.
Warrior.
The greatest overcomer this little team has ever seen.
Because the boy we were told may never even independently stand is now RUNNING through fields and stores … sometimes plowing down any living object in his way.
(See the video HERE.)
The boy who didn’t receive the physical therapy he needed is now actually on a short hiatus from his own physical therapy because he’s doing so well with morning Team PT here at home. (The boy OWNS a trampoline, and his pull-ups and burpees put the high schooler’s PT to SHAME.)
(See this superhero’s jumping prowess HERE.)
And the boy who file writers worried wouldn’t meet milestones in this life is now READING. Adding. Subtracting. And scoring a 98 percent on the very first real math test of his entire life!
We just can’t with this boy and his big God.
A couple years ago, we had the privilege of working through a renowned pediatric neuropsychologist at one of the best children’s hospitals in the country who focuses on examining the brains and abilities of children with diagnoses like CP. After hours of evaluations and multiple visits, this amazing woman provided for us an encyclopedia-sized report of Superhero 4’s strengths and weaknesses.
The part of his brain that struggles most?
The part that operates short-term memory.
Which means that moreso even than navigating mobility challenges, information retention is just an outright BEAST for this kid, and gains sometimes come at turtle pace.
Though this bright little guy has to work 50 times harder than any of our other three kiddos to simply remember the basics, this little fighter doesn’t let that stop him from succeeding. Learning, like everything else in his life, is just one big, ole opportunity in disguise.
When Superhero 4 was selected for “summer reading camp” (because “camp” is how we now dupe kids into participating in summer school), he had just two questions. “They have snack there?” and “My friends go?” When he found out he would be receiving not just snack but breakfast and lunch, too, all with his best girl-pause-friend by his side, the boy thought he’d won a trip to Disneyworld. “I go summer reading camp, not you, suckers!” he yelled at his brothers one day as he crawled with a swagger with his bookbag out the door.
When we asked if he’d like to get some extra reading tutoring help with one of our favorite second grade teachers of all time, he didn’t just consider it; he demanded to know every non-tutoring summer afternoon why we weren’t hosting a “reading playdate” with Mrs. Perchinsky and her dogs.
And when we started tackling spelling lists for the very first time this second grade school year, this little guy who can only read half the words he’s trying to spell didn’t blink an eye. Without complaining once, he spent three hours studying for one spelling test and five hours studying for another, and this little trooper who could not spell “who” to save his life on Thursday came home on Friday with his very first 100 percent!
(Straight-up confession: Spelling List 3 just took a nosedive off the Land of the Living Parents, and Mom and Dad are quickly discovering that we do NOT have this amazing, inspiring, Superhero 4-brand type of persistence. In fact, we are horrible, impatient human beings who really just want to beat our heads against a wall after hour three of practicing the word “write.” Meanwhile, this guy gets so tickled that he remembers a “w” before a hard word that he’s too busy shaking booty in the kitchen to notice that “wrint” is *still* not a word that will appear on Friday’s test. Jesus, teach me how to have this kind of joy. And then, for the love of all things holy, please stage a miraculous intervention and help this boy learn how to spell.)
(See the Spelling Dance HERE.)
This Energizer Bunny allows no one to limit him and no one to define him and no one to contain his effervescent joy. He pays no attention to laws and lanes, and when it comes to staying in his, this boy breaks all the barriers.
Last February, he asked to complete a 5K with his big brothers who were running their first trail race. Though he occasionally needed pushed on the back of his walker, this little fighter refused to quit, and he finished the 5K faster than some of the adults who were walking!
This November 6, he’s attempting one again — this time, though, completely on his own.
Superhero 4 will be running in the first ever Moving Mountains 5K for Adoption. He’ll be navigating this flat and fairly accessible course all on his own, and he’ll be doing it to raise money for an adoption fund that partners with children with hard histories and the families that bring them home.
And this little ball of fire is looking for sponsors.
If you’d like to sponsor him as he takes on his first solo 5K, simply message me. 100 percent of donations are tax deductible, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to an adoption fund that provides not just grants for adopting families but medical, educational and special consideration scholarships and grants for the children they bring home.
Superhero 4’s hope is that, through this race, other children, especially those with superpowers like his, will be given the same opportunities God has blessed him with.
Because if there’s ANYONE who has taught us the truth about special needs, it’s this guy.
Special needs are just superpowers in disguise.
Thank you, Superhero 4, for teaching us what it looks like to don your cape despite your circumstances and FLY.
Update:
On November 6, a courageous and determined Superhero 4 set off on his first solo 5K … and ran his brains out next to the sweetest friends who encouraged him and spurred him on. By the time Superhero 4 made it to the halfway mark, where Super-Spouse and I were waiting with megaphones and medical attention, he was drenched in sweat and not-tears (“These NOT tears, Mama, okay? They just water from sweaty salty eyes!”) and was over-heating from having run at full force 1.5 miles in a walker on an unusually hot and humid November day.
He was D.O.N.E.
As I hugged him and Super-Spouse helped him ice down and wipe down his dripping face, he shared with us his frustration at not being able to finish the full course this go-round … especially with so many sponsors writing out their belief in him with big checks. (Thanks to your insane generosity, Superhero 4 made $635 in sponsorship donations! THANK YOU for your lavish love and encouragement of this absolute warrior of a boy!)
“Buddy, they don’t care that you finish,” we told him, “they care that you gave your BEST! And THIS, buddy, is your 110 percent, absolute BEST.”
He smiled.
“Next year,” he promised, “Superhero 4 run the WHOLE 5K. I start training now.”
We know you will, buddy. We know you will.
