My Little Battle Pony

Henry is flapping.

He does this so rarely anymore. You have to catch him in a moment of unguarded bliss. His hands flap like little baby wings. Just like when he was a toddler.

"Dad!" he yells. "Check out my pony!"

He runs to where I sit on the couch sipping my coffee. He is holding a My Little Pony doll. It is a purple unicorn with pink hair.

"It's awesome," he says.

***

Not very many minutes ago, he was complaining that the girls never want to play anything cool.

"I don't want to play with stupid ponies," he said. "The girls only want to play boring normal stuff."

Boring normal stuff, by Henry's definition, includes things such as playing school or house. Not obviously cool stuff such as ninjas or dragons.

We encouraged him to give the girls a chance. They played his games for most of the morning. Fair is fair.

***

"My pony can fly," Henry explains. His eyes are wild. "He has super strength. He shoots fire out his horn. And, he's the captain of the Pony Ball team."

"Cool," I say.

He runs back to the game. He is flapping.

***

Moments later, he's arguing with Alice.

"My pony just shot fire on your pony!" he says.

"No it DIDN'T," she insists.

"Yes, it did. See? Whoooooooosh. Fire. All over you pony."

Alice sighs.

"Fine," she says. "But my pony isn't very happy about it."