Fatherly Duties

Tonight, I shall ask the readers a simple question? Am I a big softie?... and before you all say "Oh yeah. Lee's the Pilsbury Doughboy he's so soft" here's the story...

To start, I have a "room" that is filled with all sorts of comic book goodies. On the left side of the room are the boxes. You can see I am well organized with boxes and boxes and boxes. This is the Marvel half of the shelf, the other half consists of DC/Indies. On the right hand side of the room is the trades. Needless to say, the wife never enters the room... well, just because, BUT, it's all I can do to keep the kids out.

In a free moment, I put up a shelf and began to load it with action figures because no comic book room is complete without an highly, collectable ACTION FIGURE display area. Now, I didn't tell the kids about the shelf figuring they would see it soon enough.

It took less than a week. I came home from work yesterday and Jonah attacked me as I walked in the door!

"Daddy Daddy DADDY. You have a new shelf. When can we play with your toys Daddy Daddy DADDY!" Jonah is five and as with all five yr olds very excitable. He has trouble telling the difference between highly, collectable ACTION FIGURES and toys but other than that he's great. Once his twin sister Maia joined in the "Toy, toy toy, please please please" chant I caved. "After dinner" I said to a chorus of cheers. The interesting part about this whole exchange is that I never told Jonah about the shelf, and typically I don't leave the door to "THE ROOM" open. So, how exactly he knew about the shelf and the highly, collectable ACTION FIGURES on the shelf is a great big mystery.

After dinner, the kids rushed into the basement and flew into the room. I had to explain who everyone was... twice because everyone was too excited to listen the first time... and all the figrues were touched and held and generally loved as only five year olds can.

Now then, this is the part which will or won't define me as a softie... After all the highly, collectable ACTION FIGURES were down,
Maia turned to me...,
With her eyes as big as bowling balls, innocent and full of hope...,
looked me right in the eye....
And with a little mist in her eye, because she already knew the answer asked "Daddy, don't you have any girl action figures?"

TO which I replied "HELL NO!".... NO NO NO. I didn't do that!!!!

I replied, "Daddy has some in the back room that he hasn't unpacked yet. Maybe tonight, after you go to bed, I shall try to find them." I asked who she wanted and she settled for a moon knight because he has a cape like Batman.

Soooooo, since I don't have any girl highly, collectable ACTION FIGURES, today, I rushed out to Toys'r'us at lunch and bought a Wasp figure. I would have gotten the Spiderwoman figure too but she really, really didn't look good.

Tonight, after dinner, I snuck the Wasp down, and presented her to my daughter who played with her until bed time.

So, am I a big softie????