One of my favorite Super Bowl commercials was the one for Volkswagen where the little kid, dressed as Darth Vader, used The Force to start his dad’s all-new Passat in his driveway. If you haven’t seen it, watch it here. It’s adorable.
It reminds me very much of Cameron at a similar age. Cameron has gone through many incarnations of dressing in character. Scooby-Doo, Inspector Clouseau, Harry Potter, Wolverine, Indiana Jones, and a rock star have all shared our home at one point in time or another. When he was four, Spider-Man was his alter ego of choice.
Cameron took playing Spider-Man to a new level. I think he truly believed he was Spider-Man. He asked for working webs for Christmas one year. Every time he resisted going to bed or doing something, and I had to physically pick him up, he’d go into defensive mode and start shooting “webs” at me. Most pictures taken of him in 2007 show him with his pinky and index fingers outstretched in a web-shooting pose. Once he came up to me in full costume and said, “Mom, can I give you a kiss?” I said sure, and he lifted up only the bottom portion of his mask, leaned upside down, and kissed me like Spider-Man kissed Mary Jane in the first movie. Ok, a little weird, but also quite sweet.
Climbing is a big part of Spider-Man’s repertoire. Cameron attempted to climb everything. Curtains, swingsets, ladders, walls, cars, bannisters, trees, fences, the list goes on. One day my neighbor happened to be looking outside her front window, and saw Spider-Man hanging upside down from her tree. She was quick with her camera and snapped this great picture of him in full glory. That’s why the little kid in the Darth Vader costume melted my heart, because that’s how I’ll always remember my silly little Cammy, shooting his webs all summer long. With great power comes great responsibility.
© Jennifer Alys Windholz, 2011
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