"In your satin tights...Fighting for our rights..."

I have created monster. Well, to be more precise, a superhero.

Thursday is Sweatpants Day at #1's school*. Don't get me started on the fact that nobody under the age of fifty owns a pair of actual sweatpants since we have all moved on to track pants and yoga pants, but I spent the better part of yesterday morning racing through the mall, with Little Man in the stroller, flinging Teddy Grahams overboard, muttering curses under my breath, trying to accomplish the impossible task of finding, not only a pair of said sweatpants, but in kids' sizes. Sweating like a pig, since they keep the mall a comfy eighty five degrees, and I was pushing a combined total of eighty pounds of baby, stroller and gear, I arrived at the last possible source of said sweatpants, The Gap.

Of course, nary an unfashionable athletic pant in sight, I settle on a pair of grey yoga pants. Hauling my, now whining, toddler and my exhausted ass to the register, I plop my purchase down and out of the the corner of my eye, what do I spy? WONDER WOMAN T-SHIRTS! Squee! I excitedly began to paw through the pile of purple, sparkly-lettered shirts emblazoned with an artfully faded image of WW surrounded by the phrase "Girls Rule". I immediately grab two, not blinking at the ridiculous price I was about to pay for a cotton T-shirt as I was about to introduce my girls to their new hero.

A little back ground. As a girl I was obsessed with Wonder Woman, as were most young girls in the early seventies. And how could you not be? She was beautiful and strong and wore a crown with matching jewelry that also happened to be a boomerang and bullet-proof respectively. I had the poster, the bedspread, the Underoos, and of course, wore the tragic, plastic drugstore costume one Halloween and, as Jerry Seinfeld described his own plastic Superman costume, looked like Wonder Woman in her pajamas.

So as soon as the girls arrived home from school, I displayed my prizes only to be greeted with silence. Well, of course, they have no idea who this woman is. I must educate them! I tell them, "This is Wonder Woman! She's a superhero and a princess!" Intrigued, the girls sat down next to me on the couch as I opened the laptop and pulled up a clip from Youtube. To say they were immediately hooked is an understatement. WW is like little girl crack. "Show us more! Pleeeease?"

Thus began a very unproductive afternoon. We started with the basics. In fact, I was reeducating myself. I had to go back to WW's roots and show the girls her Amazonian island beginnings. #1 was hooked at this point as they all wear floaty dresses and have flowers in their hair. In the first episode, Cloris Leachman plays the queen and WW's mother! Huh, she didn't always look like a raisin. Here we saw the presentation of the tiara, the bracelets and The Golden Lasso of Truth, which I spent a good fifteen minutes explaining and then finding clips of them in action.

Then we got to WW's departure and her arrival in our world (#1 cried, "Why is she leaving her mommy?"). Apparently, unbeknownst to my six year old self, the first few seasons of Wonder Woman took place during World War II. Diana Prince, WW's cover, is a secretary for the US military and the bad guys are all Nazis in the beginning. This is where the fun began because I was able to show them clip after clip of Diana Prince doing the famous arms-out-twirl and becoming Wonder woman. Here was also introduced the invisible plane. How to Christ did that make sense? It did to my kids. As we moved forward into latter seasons of the show, apparently, there is a time warp and WW took place in the modern day. This is where I found this amazing fight clip. I also discovered some major star power - Debra Winger plays her little sister! Red Buttons plays a Nazi spy! Amazing.

As we watched, tears of laughter rolled down my face. This show was seriously, seriously bad. The dialogue is awful, the stunts, laughable, as some rail-thin stunt guy is flung around the set wearing a wig doing one of WW's "super jumps". Times were so different - look at how skinny and un-muscled Linda Carter is! Today, she'd be in the gym six hours a day and look like Jennifer Garner (my BFF) in Electra. And the costume! How the hell is anyone supposed to run in what is, essentially, a strapless bathing suit? And the bottom is so badly cut, the borderline-anorexic Carter actually looks like she's got some badonkadonk.

But even as bad as it was, I love the fact that this is a female super hero, so much so I am ordering Season 1 on DVD to watch with my girls (and when drunk with H). The way they latched onto this character proves there is something so impressive about strong, female characters to girls that it makes me sad there is no current day equivalent**. After our viewing was over (read: I realized hours had passed and Little Man's diaper was outrageously full and it was already dinnertime), I was making dinner and heard #1 rummaging around in my closet. She appeared in the outfit, pictured above and proceeded to make her own bracelets and Lasso of Truth out of paper, tape, a paper plate and string. #2 called me into the living room, where I found her, naked, holding her clothes and spinning in a circle in a hilarious recreation of the early season spin transformations where Wonder Woman was actually holding her clothes when she finished.

So it looks like Diana Prince is now a permanent fixture in my house. She has unseated Pocahontas as next year's choice for Halloween costume and I think those T-shirts are going to fall apart pretty quickly with such frequent wear. I love the fact my girls have a new hero, especially one I loved so much myself (even if she does look like she needs a more supportive costume and to eat a damn sandwich). And to top it all off she wears some kick-ass boots.

* Next week there is "Crazy Sock Day" which I also had to shop for and came away completely unsuccessful. My kids wear white socks! Who the hell comes up with this shit?

** There is a movie, which I have not investigated, slated for 2009 release. I will check it out and report back. I do not have high hopes.