Updated November 22, 2022

He’d planned it diligently from the day he developed the idea.

Although Superhero 2 had the option of choosing a party, a gift, or an experience for his 13th birthday, we knew without a doubt what our little extroverted lover of fun and festivities and friends would favor.

Unquestionably a party with his close-knit co-op cohort.

This organized little event planner carefully designed the event — a murder mystery party in the comfort of his favorite place — home.

He’d picked the theme — Bullets on Broadway with a side of Hamilton.

He’d assigned the characters, suggested ideas for the costumes (Trip Fallington the trap door operator earned big brownie points by brandishing a full sleeve of fake ink) and made a menu that included Guns and Dips, A. Ham and A. Burgers and History Has Its Fries on You (because Theis genes die hard and Odyssey pun life, even harder).

And the day before he turned 13, Superhero 2, his siblings and his talented thespian friends donned fedoras and flapper dresses and all the red carpet accoutrements and assembled in our family room to the tunes of Hamilton and a glass of tea-dom for an afternoon of performing, problem solving and pretending to murder each other.

Because we believe in wholesome here.

The icing on the Hamilton cake, however, may have been the hilarious group gift this incredibly creative crew so perfectly picked out for him:

The deed to five square feet of land in Scotland.

Which officially makes this middleborn boy a certified, bonified LORD.

At 13, Lord Superhero 2 is boldly, authentically and unapologetically his unique, jovial, joyful self. He’s packed with personality and chockfull of compassion and loves big and hard and deep and wide. He loves the Lord (not just his title as one), people, puns and planning, and if he could wear a different hat every day of the week, he would.

He’s the clarinet player who showed up to his band’s Pizza and Patio Tunes fundraiser in a full suit and fedora at a blistering 1 billion degrees, and he’s the saxophone player who can’t not dance through the 17,001st version of “Careless Whisper” in the hall (a number which pales in comparison only to the number of times he’s watched The Epic Sax Guy perform on YouTube).

And as one with a zeal and zest for life who doesn’t want to miss a drop of what his big, beautiful God has to offer, he’s the one involved in all. The. Things.

This year, this active boy who relishes a good challenge is running cross country and continuing tae kwon do, taking clarinet lessons and tutoring 6th grade band students on Wednesday mornings. As he continues compiling his list of instruments he would like to acquire and learn (which so far include the bagpipes, the bass clarinet and the soprano sax, which he explained to us is just “a clarinet going through puberty”), he’s playing both for the school band and also in the community orchestra he just joined. (He and his dear friend and friendly clarinet competitor who talked him into community orchestra went chairs 1 and 2 in this fall’s All-County Honors Band.)

He’s active with his brand new youth group and five books into his list for this year’s Battle of the Books competition, and his role as the Interact club president has been keeping him busy organizing Trunk or Treat Monsters Inc buses and planning for schoolwide service member care packages.

Although he’s not participating on an Odyssey of the Mind team this year (mostly because his lame quitter of a coach stepped down for a year in order to prioritize his siblings and return her garage to his father), he’s hoping the 30-plus hours he poured into building a robotic bird that flapped its wings in last year’s Odyssey skit will prepare him for this year’s robotics club and competition.

Although 6th grade virtual co-op will likely go down in history as Superhero 2’s favorite year of all time (read about the Odyssey-team-turned-28-hour-per-week-co-op in last year’s blog HERE), God, in all His goodness, gifted this boy and the friends who are almost like siblings in this life with an almost unfairly fantastic 7th grade year.

(Don’t worry. We’ve told him multiple times that he downright scammed the miserable middle school years system.)

What these co-op kiddos do for fun in their free time. Build functional trebuchets.

Besides having a teaching dream team he adored and a class schedule packed with his favorite project buddies, this bibliophile’s hardworking Battle of the Books team won second place in the district competition.

Thanks to the design work of some brilliant and dedicated friends, his robotics team won the design award at their district competition.

Though at home we were still living in the land of tortured hyena sounds at audition time, the music lover somehow, thanks to the the gracious and invaluable assistance of a benevolent, clarinet-playing grandma, earned the first chair in both the All-County and All-District Middle School Honors Bands ... just before coming down with Covid and forfeiting his seat in not just one but both bands, which met during his 10-day quarantine window.

The Silver Lining Looker of All Time’s response after grieving the horrible timing and the loss of one of the things he was looking forward to the most: “Mom, do you know what the great news is? I might not be able to play in the band, but I can now get hugs from Superhero 3 and Superhero 4 [who we’d tried to keep the only non-sickie away from], and I have plenty of free time now to look up cute dogs on PetFinder!”

Cute dogs mean moms cannot even be Covid guilted into bringing home, no matter how many more PowerPoints the dog lover assembles. One cute dog brought home from the 2018 Thanksgiving dinner is enough.

This spring, the honors band at his school competed in a large festival of bands in another city in our state. After missing the opportunity to play as an individual in the other two honors bands, it was especially sweet for Superhero 2 when the ensemble directed by his invested, all-in band teacher scored a Superior rating.

But perhaps the highlight of Superhero 2’s year was a nine-month-long season of solving the “Life is a Circus” problem with Odyssey of the Mind … by designing acts and writing a skit that revolved around the REAL circus that is Black Friday.

After four years together as teammates and best friends, this precious crew placed first at Regional Finals in March, won the only Ranatra Fusca award for extreme creativity in the state for long-term problems at State Finals in April and advanced to World Finals at Iowa State University in May. There, after half a week of dorm living, college boys’ bathroom showering, red stretchy pants mom matching and the time of these kids’ lives with Omers from 37 states and three foreign countries, these seven creative problem solvers did what no other team from our school district ever has.

They placed SECOND IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!

(Astonishment looks like the faces of kids who had tuned out of the ceremony to complete CROSSWORD puzzles because, after seeing their Polish competition, they were so convinced they were out of the running that they weren’t even listening to the announcer.)

See the video on YouTube HERE.

Only Jesus could have written this story in this boy’s life.

After the second-best school year of all time ended, this sweet superhero (who happens to love long car conversations and beachside books as much as I do) and I took a mama-son road trip to Daytona, Florida, for Tae Kwon Do Nationals.

There, this second-degree Black Belt who usually places approximately NEGATIVE DEAD LAST in every sparring match I’ve ever viewed, in something he later called “a miracle from God,” actually WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND for Black Belts in his division! And then went on to became the Black Belt Bo Staff National Champion in his age and division.

See the video on YouTube HERE.

He tests for his third-degree Black Belt in December.

Clearly, seventh grade officially ruined realistic expectations for him for the rest of his life. We apologize, buddy, if it’s all downhill from here. Can’t live your whole life on the mountaintop. 😉

What he’s valued even more than any of these incredible experiences, however, is the beautiful PEOPLE he’s gotten to enjoy them alongside.

Because at the end of the day, what Superhero 2 treasures most in this world is friends, family and the One He knows has gifted him both.

As we were lying on the beach nose-deep in books and listening to ocean waves, I asked him where he wanted to eat for the only dinner of his life he didn’t have to consult a brother to choose. The relationship-lover’s response: “I don’t care where we eat as long as I get to eat it with you.”

When he returned from Daytona, this guy’s first task wasn’t to hang his medal or frame his certificate; it was to teach the baby brother who uses a walker how to use the bo staff … and give him “lessons” every day for weeks.

When we started back summer family hikes, he was the one who insisted on saving the soldier’s weary back and packing out Superhero 4 on his own instead.

He’s constantly asking what he can do and how he can serve, and when his nose isn’t stuck in a book or his ears buried in odd instrument videos, he plants himself for hours firmly in the direct center of the brother Lego building construction zone.

There’s nowhere else he’d rather be at the end of the week than snuggled up in sweats with his dog, his brothers, his book and his favorite blankie, on a couch spilling over with family on traditional Friday Make-Your-Own-Pizza Night. And there’s nowhere else he asks to go more each summer than our favorite lakeside tent spot at the state recreation area we call our summer camping home.

He loves tent camping and traveling and talking and talking and talking some more, and at the end of the day, he’s the one who insists that family absolutely comes first ... and invests the hours of board game time with brothers on family room floors to back it up.

He spends all his extra money buying his brothers ice cream and special treats from the store, and whenever he sees a need, this generous guy is the first one to give.

This summer, after completing a summer reading challenge list that included books like Radical, Kisses from Katie and What Are You Going to Do With Your Life?, this boy who has always had such a heart for Jesus and the vulnerable asked if we could please help him donate 10 percent of the funds in his bank account to one of our favorite orphan care organizations.

His generous heart for others is possibly the most beautiful thing about him. (It’s also the reason he defends “poor Thobe” anytime we occasionally let him watch an episode of The Office. “He’s such a nice guy and just terribly misunderstood. I just want to give him a hug.”)

Superhero 2, I know we’ve always made you promise us that you would never grow up and be a teenager.

But since you ignored our warnings and became one anyway, we’ve got to tell you the truth.

We have truly never enjoyed you more.

You are a DELIGHT and a JOY and a gift straight from God. Your smile lights up a room and your huge hugs melt our hearts.

You teach us so much about generosity and compassion and patience and PRESENCE, and watching you love your friends and family well while loudly living this most authentic version of yourself challenges US to live more bold, loving and giving lives. The way you joyfully and lavishly love God and love people reminds us that, at the end of the day, our calling in this life is actually so very simple.

It's to make love the trademark of our lives.

We’re probably not going to call you “Lord Superhero 2,” and we’re probably not going to ever love listening to YouTube videos of strange and exotic instruments the same way you do.

But we sure adore YOU.

And in this life, we’re so grateful for a teenager who teaches US what the lavish love of God looks like … one party and one person at a time.

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