“Mama,” he says as he bursts into the bathroom. “I’m not just any boy. I’m special! And some weird things have been happening to me lately.”

“Yes you are special,” I agree. Weird things? Happening to my child? I tighten up my towel and try to restart my heart. “What kind of ‘weird things’?”

“There was the incident at the water park,” he says, and he recounts the story of how he went down the water slide with Daddy and their tube flipped over and he went way under water before Daddy nabbed him and pulled him to the surface. “I remember to hold my breath, and I felt like AquaMan, except AquaMan doesn’t have to hold his breath, so it was more like Batman underwater.”

I experience both relief and understanding.

“So when you say ‘special,’ you mean you might have some super powers?”

He nods — “yep” — and holds his finger out to me. “I also found this in my ear.”

I accept the giant ball of earwax with as much grace as I can muster.

“Wow,” I say. “How about you go eat your breakfast, and I’ll get dressed, and then we can talk more about what makes you special.”

“OK mama,” he says, and he charges off in search of adventure. And cereal.