The school pictures of the adorable three-year-old Kaylieann Steinbach have gone viral for all the right reasons. Overnight, the little girl became an inspiration to the deaf community and the photo has been the source of thousands of smiles.
Most parents can relate that picking out an outfit for the yearly school picture can result in a lot of stress.
Apparently, Kaylieann wasn’t too keen on wearing the outfit that mom and dad already chose for her the day before. Knowing that Kaylieann would be somewhat upset and disappointed, dad Austin told her that she could wear anything she wanted.
She decided to take that very literally.
The little girl mainly communicates via American Sign Language (ASL) because she is 75 percent deaf in both of her ears. She’s always been a fan of superheroes and is particularly fond of Superman and Supergirl. Because of her hearing loss and her inability to recognize an ‘s’, she funnily pronounces these two superheroes from Krypton as ‘Pooterman’ and ‘Pootergirl’.
“She likes all superheroes because they are helpers,” dad Austin said to Mashable. “She absolutely loves helping anyone, and that’s how she sees her superheroes, so she fits right in with them.”
When Kaylieann looked at all of the possible outfits, there was one that instantly caught her attention.
She picked a red and blue outfit with a cape, none other than a Supergirl costume.
“On picture day at school she was given the choice of outfits, none of which were Supergirl. She walked up, looked over each of her choices, turned and said, ‘POOTERGIRL!’ And well, I couldn’t argue with that answer,” dad recalls.
Kaylieann’s parents bought her the costume to go to the San Francisco Comic-Con event in cosplay, and she’s been very fond of the Supergirl outfit ever since. In fact, she even wore it so much that her parents didn’t have time to wash it. Luckily, she also had a Spiderman outfit to rotate so that mom and dad could clean the Supergirl costume after all.
The school picture turned out to be absolutely amazing.
To make the whole thing even more awesome, the little girl brought her favorite Superman doll along for the picture that perfectly matched her Supergirl outfit.
“She absolutely loves Superman, especially her life-size ‘pooterman’ she attempts to take [him] everywhere.”
According to Austin, his little girl definitely loves to dress up as her favorite heroes. In fact, she has a lot of other costumes too that she regularly wears on schooldays. Her classmates and staff members alike always wonder what superhero Kaylieann would pick the next time. Whether it’s Spider-Man, Batman, Wonder Woman or Frozen’s Anna – Kaylieann will always find something magical or heroic to wear.
“Her school is amazing,” Austin says. “They always love and look forward to ‘the superhero of the day’ or what she’s picked out to wear.”
Austin decided to share the school picture on the internet, but he didn’t expect the image to go viral.
With almost 50,000 upvotes on Reddit, Kaylieann’s Supergirl picture has been seen by millions. Her special and brave story has also made her an inspiration to the deaf community ever since.
“The reaction and turnout from the deaf community is amazing,” Austin said to The Huffington Post. “I still haven’t been able to get through all the messages of support and kind words people have sent me. I could never have imagined how much her picture could have touched so many,” Austin Steinbach told the Huffington Post.
As a big fan of comic events, the little girl is now trying to decide what outfit to wear for the next Comic-Con. As for any future school pictures, dad says that ‘this one is going to be hard to beat.’
What an adorable and brave little girl!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
