"I Superman, Natalie's Supergirl"

When Natalie was a little baby, I used to hold her in air above me when we were playing and say, "It's a bird, no it's a plane, no it's Super Natalie!!" I can't tell you how many countless times I did that.

Shortly after coming home from almost 9 straight weeks in the hospital, we watched the "new superman movie" together. Natalie fell in love with Superman immediately. She loved the hero that came in to save the day and clapped and clapped when he saved Lois Lane from the crashing airplane. Right after watching that scene for the first time, she made up her famous "Zoom!" to show us how Superman flys.

A few days later I had to take Natalie to get a flu shot now that her ANC was up a bit. It was so close to our long hospital stay where she had been poked and prodded incessantly, had countless tubes stuck down her nose and other places, been diagnosed with cancer, AND had intensive chemo aimed at quickly killing the cancer in her body. I felt so sorry for her to have to get poked yet again.

She had fallen SO in love with Superman and had been talking about him incessantly for days, so as soon as her flu shot was done I took her to the store across the street from the doctors office and got her a special pair of Superman Pajamas as a reward. During our hospital stay we saw great value in helping soothe the heart after difficult experiences. It was fitting that she loved Superman, because to me she was a true Superhero that was handling all these changes in her life with strength and grace that was hard to fathom from a barely two year old. She truly was Super Natalie! Those words were no longer just a fun, playtime game; they were very real.

By Christmas the next month, her love of Superman had grown so much that everyone knew about it. When we went to my parents house for Christmas, my Mom went to the store and bought Natalie a special Superman blanket and a Superman ball to play with. Her Auntie sent her the Justice League for Christmas too. Auntie Kathy had already surprised her with a special Superman action figure that became her favorite toy. Two days after getting home from Christmas, Natalie ended up in the hospital with a gram negative sepsis. It was a hard stay. I can still remember the night that the sheets came off the bed during one of the all too frequent times that her "just in case" wasn't enough to handle things. Somehow, during the rush of changing her bedding, her prized Superman toy was taken out with the laundry. It was taken right out of the room too because it was not something we wanted in there. She was SO sad when she discovered him missing, but like always handled it with grace and sweetness. Her nurse felt so bad that she went to the only open store on her lunch break (night shift) to try to replace it. She couldn't find a toy, but she found a Superman bowl and water container that were waiting when Natalie woke up. Everyone knew how much she loved Superman. She always showed everyone the Zoom!!

My memory gets a little fuzzy, but sometime right around then, I told Natalie the Superman story during a car drive to clinic. We always talked in the car. She was in much need of happy, distracting things to talk about those days. Her GI trouble was so hard to deal with. After just one time telling her the story, in true Natalie fashion, she could repeat it back almost perfectly. She fell in love with telling EVERYONE that story, it became hers. She loved it, we loved it. It made us all happy. She told that story forever. I still remember her at the park, a cute little bald two year old, with a group of strangers standing around her listening to her tell her Superman story. One of our favorite parts was always her very animated Zoom at the end, "Zoom! Superman goes zoom through the sky," that was what she said the first time she saw Superman. Somehow I never got it recorded, there were a lot of hard times and for some reason not enough pictures or videos were taken. I won't ever make that mistake again. I did get it recorded months later when life calmed down a bit. She was a bit older, but it is still adorable.


My little Super Natalie. I can't express how much I love this video.

Love this one too. I love her emotion in this one, all Natalie. We eventually added Spiderman into our stories as well. She loved those movies too.

A few pictures of our Super Nat!




This picture is so special to us. She wanted to be either Supergirl or Jasmine for Halloween that year. David steered her to Supergirl. David tried to get this shot forever, making her look larger than life. Seeing her in this costume was emotional for us, because that is how we saw her everytime we looked at her, a superhero. Our Super Nats.



These two pictures are so GREAT! I love these! She's teaching him to fly. These were taken last Febuary, just over a year ago.



For several months now, Stephen walks around saying, "I Superman, Natalie Supergirl!" I just love it. His big Sissy means everything to him. He watches t.v. and when he watches commercials, he says, "that's me" and "that's Natalie" depending on the target gender of each item on the commercial. Everything is about the two of them. It seems his Big Sissy really is teaching him to fly. They play Superhero's and Natalie tells him he is Superman and eggs him on in saving the world. He loves it. He loves to fight bad guys, especially when Natalie is cheering him on.
A couple of months ago, Natalie REALLY grew out of her special Superman pajamas. I'm not sure how they fit her that long, but they suddenly seemed to become capris. She passed them on to Brother. He couldn't have been more excited. Very fitting.