PORTLAND, OR—It began like any other day for the Leroux family. Greg and Cindy were getting ready for work---he a CSR for a paperclip manufacturer, she a street henna tattoo artist---when their boy Hayden came downstairs to eat his morning breakfast of Kashi's new redwood-flavored cereal, made with bits of real redwood trees.

As he munched on the twigs and leaves, he said the phrase that would change their lives forever: "Man, I wish I were Raphael." Greg abruptly stopped brushing his neck hair. Cindy almost dropped her kombucha. 

"Oh, baby," his mom said, pulling up a chair next to him in the breakfast nook of their quaint Portland home. "Do you really mean it? We can begin transition surgeries right away. I'll call the Morrises; I hear they used an excellent surgeon when their son decided he wanted to be a Transformer."

"Yeah, I wanna be a ninja turtle," he said. "Pow! Bam! Bang!" He then started kicking his mother and stabbing her in the face with his plastic sai, confirming their suspicion that little Hayden was actually a ninja turtle trapped in a boy's body. Over the next three months, their boy underwent seven surgeries and strange glowy sewer ooze to help him begin his biological transition into a ninja turtle who punches things.

"It's important for parents to listen to their kids' every desire and immediately affirm that desire," Greg told reporters at a press conference held on their lawn. "If your kid says he's a fire truck, rip off his legs and install some industrial tires, for goodness' sake."

"Imagine how much harm you would do to your kids if you impressed your beliefs on them instead of listening to their subjective opinion of reality," he added.

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