The Day I Became a Queen

Last Friday I came home from work and - after I changed out of my uniform - I asked Foster (that's what I'm going to call our foster son in my blog posts) if he wanted to go on a walk with me. It was a nice day and I thought he would enjoy getting outside. So we put on our shoes and coats and started out on an adventure.
I thought it would be fun to walk over to the elementary school where my boys used to attend, and spend some time on the playground. And as we walked we talked about all sorts of things. (Mostly Batman, though, if I recall correctly. Because Foster loves Batman. And somehow every conversation seems to come back to the Dark Knight.)

When we arrived at the playground we went to the swings. We needed to sit and rest a minute because of the running we'd just done. Then we tried out the balance beam and monkey bars. And I totally impressed Foster with my ability to climb up a tall pole. (I was kinda impressed, myself. Because I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it!) Finally, we made our way over to a structure with slides and ladders and bridges and stuff.
It was on this structure that I became a queen.
Foster introduced the idea of pretending the structure was a castle and I, its queen. And he took on the roles of knight, squire, and king. I enjoyed watching him quickly transform from one character to another, and particularly delighted in the moment when he - as king - took me to a ball. We waltzed around the grass and I showed him how to spin me under his arm. He was quite pleased with his ability to dance. (Not sure kings and queens perform the Mexican Hat Dance at royal balls, but I showed him how to do that, too!)
With the final *clap* *clap*, however, things in the kingdom took a turn for the worse.
Somebody invaded the castle and we had to flee.
Fortunately, there was another structure on the playground which was able to serve as an alternate castle. So we ran to it.
UNfortunately, the villans attacking the first castle saw us running and chased us.
Double-fortunately, the playground had a third structure which could act as our castle.
So we ran to that one.
Double-UNfortunately, the villans chased us as we fled to that one, too.
In a last-ditch effort to escape the villans, we ran to the first castle.
And super-duper-fortunately, when we got back to the first castle Foster turned into SpiderMan!!!
At that point, I thought all our problems had ended. But I was wrong. Something very strange happened to SpiderMan and he began to turn on the queen. He accused me of doing nothing but wearing fancy dresses and going to balls. *gasp!*
So I reminded him (in the slightly annoying, quasi-British-a-little-bit-Scottish accent of the queen) that's what queens do. It went something like this: Pardon me, sir, but all you do is run around fighting villans. Because you're a super-hero, and that's what super-heros do. Well, I am a queen. And we wear fancy dresses and go to balls!
The next thing I knew, Spidey made his famous hand gesture and shot a web right at my face.
He webbed my mouth shut!
I continued protesting his behavior, but this time it went a little more like this: Mmmmm, mmmm. Mmm! MMMMM! And for the next several minutes we went back and forth between the queen getting webbed in place so SpiderMan could paint the castle blue and red, and Spidey cutting off the mouth web so she could speak - only to web it again when he wanted her to be quiet.
It was quite a hilarious scene.
But then it was time to go home so I could begin making dinner.
As we walked, Foster and I continued our role-play - and my enjoyment carried on with us. It was so much fun to see his imagination at work as he added to the story. I fully delighted in playing along. When we were almost home, Spidey pulled out his (imaginary) cell phone and started texting someone. I (the queen) asked for the indentity of the person with whom he was speaking and got super, SUPER excited when he told me it was Elsa! He texted a message to convey how much I admired her singing and how pleased I was to have a personal interaction with her. I then learned that SpiderMan and Elsa are in love, and are probably going to get married. It was such an exciting discovery.
But I was sworn to secrecy.
No one must know of this love affair.
At first I was disappointed that I couldn't tell anyone. Then I remembered it was all make-believe. SpiderMan and Elsa don't even know each other.
But later that evening I came across this picture - and I wondered if Foster's story just might be true!