We had a row this evening. It was actually a culmination of an argument that started Saturday evening.

Saturday night. You did your homework with much gusto (no prodding from me at all). You finished all in no time. But as you looked at your reading card, you realised you forgot what needed to be read. And so you asked me to send a message to your teacher to ask her about the reading assignment. At 10pm on a Saturday. Of course I said no. Then you let go of it.

Sunday evening came and you prepared your bag for tomorrow’s class. And then panicky, you asked me to message your teacher to ask her what story needs to be read. And you asked me in a raised voice at that (on hindsight though, I think your voice was raised because you were panicking). The absurdity of the request and the raised voice pushed a wrong button in me and you definitely heard some strong scolding from me. Of course you were crying.

But after a few minutes of crying, you suddenly calmed down, said “I have a good idea”, and went to look for something. For a couple of minutes I just watched you look around for something. Intrigued, I finally asked. Unicorn memo book. You were looking for your unicorn memo book. And at almost the same instant you answered me, you found what you were looking for.

That definitely got me head scratching. Wiping a new wave of tears (you stopped crying while you were looking around), you said, “it’s not good now. But only now. So that next time I won’t forget, I’ll write it down. I’ll take notes so that I don’t forget what the homework is”.

And my jaw just dropped. I was already on the verge of getting worried how to calm you down. But what actually happened was that even as you were crying, you were already thinking of a solution on how to avoid the same problem next time. Wow baby, wow.