When I was a superhero...

Our five-year-old girl begins A LOT of conversations with; 'When I was a superhero..." In fact  it is a precursor of  most of what comes out of her mouth, at home and walking to and from school.

And this is one I cannot reference in any parenting/ child psychology book so I asked her teacher "Miss Lovely-Smile, "Does the Pinkster make mention of having been a superhero? And rather a lot?"

Miss Lovely-Smile, stopped smiling to look puzzled; "Not at all - I've never heard that," she said.

So we're watching Disney's African Cats a 'G' rated documentary on Lions and Cheetahs.  If you watch the movie trailer here, you'll see why it appealed.

Mr Frenchie and I had vetted most of it while she was in bed one night to make sure it didn't have any blood and gore before we let her see it.

It seemed to be very tastefully done with small children in mind.  A bit of chasing game without showing the actual kill. And a lovely sequence where a single mum Cheetah successfully outwits a hungry Lion leading him on an exhausting chase away from her five cubs.

So I turn it on and five minutes in (we only missed the first ten minutes on our preview) a bunch of Lionesses have chased down a doe-eyed zebra and pass her around for dinner.  There's more blood and rending of limbs than a Tarantino film. 

Pinkster has a total meltdown, covering her eyes, shrieking and sobbing for the poor Zebra.  I turn it off. I cuddle, I apologise and I try to explain about the seeming cruelties of nature. "Zebras are Lions' food, they cant help it," I say.

She straightens up, squares her shoulders and bellows :"Well, when I was superhero I gave the Lions bags and bags of potatoes and a big MacDonald's where all the Lions had Happy Meals and lots of potatoes and they didn't need to eat Zebras anymore."

She promptly recommenced shoveling peas into her mouth. (Yes, I let her watch TV during dinner sometimes)  But that was it - Crisis Over.

Then it hit me, this is her way of dealing with the scary stuff that's beyond her control. It's an emotional reflex to reset things back to a comfortable level.

I thought about her other Superhero achievements:

"When I was a superhero, I was really clever at skipping..."

"When I was a superhero I made all the growly dogs and hissy cats be nice..."

"When I was a superhero I gave all the poor hungry children lots of toys and nice food.."

Now it all makes sense. Sort of.

I'm not sure why the past tense, she tells me it was a long time ago when she was a superhero.

Anyway, as I watched her chewing on her lamb-chop without a care in the world, I gave a little nervous shudder. What is going to happen to my sensitive little girl when she finds out that these:

came from these?:

I can hardly bear to think of it myself. 

"Well, when I was a superhero..."  

Nope. It doesn't work for me. 
Rats.



PS: this just surfaced on FaceBook and given all of the above it's a must see... 

     This is what happens when jungle animals ate KFC and Maccas!