What is your mom's superpower?

Mothers are a pretty special breed of people. In fact, you might say mothers are superheroes, though we don't have the fancy costumes go with the persona. (Which is fine with me because I think Wonder Woman probably fights wonder wedgies fairly often.)

It's not the general awesomeness of each day -- dishes, laundry, cooking, driving -- that earn moms our superhero status. It's our superpowers that really make us remarkable. Some of us have x-ray vision. Some have super hearing. Some moms can uncannily read minds.

This is my mom, Julie. She's got two superpowers.

The first is the ability to fix almost anything with a rubber band and a paper clip. Honestly. Give the woman something broken, a rubber band and a paper clip and 9 times out of 10, it will be fixed before you can call a repair guy. Seriously -- dishwasher, DVD player, big toe. When something in my house is broken, the kids will say "May Grandma can fix it."

My mom's second superpower is really just for show and came in much handier when I was a kid wanting to impress friends. But what good is a superpower if you can't show it off once in a while anyway. No, she doesn't tie a cherry stem with her tongue. She doesn't walk on hot coals barefoot, though she did used to hold her baby bottle with her feet (so I'm told).

The very cool, just for show superpower my mom has is that she can make a free throw while holding a bag of groceries in one arm. How cool is that?! I bet your mom would be jealous.

Speaking of your mom, what is her superpower?

Superman's got nothing on me.

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. By doing so, I'm going to trust you to keep this secret with me. Because if word got out about my little secret, people the world over would be hounding me for autographs.

Ok, here goes...I have x-ray vision. No, really, I do. I know you're thinking that only Superman has x-ray vision. But honest to gosh, I do too. I've used it three times today alone.

Not that today's the first day I've been aware of this superpower of mine. I think I've had it for about, well, almost 15 years. Hmmm....interestingly enough, that's how long I've been married. Funny coincidence, huh?

I know you're having a hard time believing me, so let me give you a few examples.

* This morning we were getting ready to go to Robbie's soccer game. Mike came out of Robbie's room with one cleat in hand, stating that he couldn't find the other one. So he sent Charlie in the room to look. No luck. In I went with my super x-ray vision and located the cleat lickety-split behind the closet door.

* Annie was packing for a sleepover and couldn't find her hairbrush. I told her the last I saw the brush, it was in my bedroom next to the bed. Apparently the brush had fallen to the floor and was hidden by the quilt. Poor girl couldn't find it. But thanks to my x-ray vision, it was SuperMom to the rescue!

* The last time we had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner, there was general disappointment that we had no ketchup to go with our meat. At least that's what everyone thought until I got up, opened the refrigerator door, looked right at the shelf where at least two other family members had looked before and found the ketchup right behind the pickles.

I don't want to brag or make anyone feel inferior because of my superpower. But I'm just so thankful to have my x-ray vision. It sure makes life easier...for everyone else.