Superpowers.

Today was Tallulah's 13th Birthday (really, not 23?) and I was thinking of all things she was for her card. Then it dawned on me, she actually has superpowers...reckon we might all have them.

At school

Tallulah (right) with cousin Leah today

Tallulah (right) on her 5th birthday with her friend Jordan who was born the same day

Jackson's over-the-top heartwarming birthday note

In Havana

In Cuba, back of the Lada taxi

When Tallulah was eight we spend two years driving around and doing testing and tutoring. She was a "slow" reader, found it kind of excruciating, and as you can imagine she totally panicked in tests. But what flummoxed all her teachers was that she wrote such great essays and poems and songs. In fact she could - and still does - write for hours and hours a day, it would just flow out of her. "It just doesn't make sense that she writes so easily" everyone kept saying.

Those two years of heartache and tears and loads of time and money trying to help her, with counsellors, tutors, testing and more testing  - what is wrong??? - didn't really yield anything concrete, I have to say.

Only one thing really stuck in my mind.

A wonderful reading teacher told us this: when Tallulah watches a movie, she plays a parallel but different reel in her mind. She will change the plot, insert herself into the action with lines, insert her friends into the action, change it from color to black and white and then back to different colors. Then she'll watch the actual movie. And then go back to her own editing.

She has trouble remembering her school schedule, but she knows all the words of every song after the first hearing. How do you know those words? I'll ask her as she sings along to every song on the radio.

The only explanation is that she has superpowers.  I bet you have some too.