Parenting woes #4

You know, I’m positive that being a parent enhances one’s imagination. If there’s one piece of advice I would give parents-to-be, it’s this: expect curveballs. I would never in my wildest dreams expect certain misadventures to happen to me, but nooo, they have an annoying way of ensnarling me and trapping my limited free time.

For example, this Thursday, I thought I was to take part in a routine Lantern Festival celebration organised by my son’s school. Misfortune first struck when my boy spotted someone with a triceratops lantern. He wanted it, of course. I was able to distract him and pull him away to avert a disaster.

Subsequently, when we went for dinner at the coffee shop, guess who was sitting at the next table? Yes, it was that boy with the shiny triceratops lantern and his family. I swear I used up my entire lifetime’s worth of good luck to strike this “lottery”.

My boy’s pleas intensified. So much so that he couldn’t sit still and eventually got down to stand forlornly near the next table, his eyes sparkling with raw desire. Honestly, it was a cool lantern. That triceratops could even saunter around, for goodness’s sake. If I were four, I would have wanted it too.

So I plucked up my courage to ask the boy’s mother where she had gotten the lantern from. “Malaysia,” she answered.

Cue face palm. This moment was exacerbated by my boy instantly remembering the country “Malaysia” and expressing his willingness to take a bus there. At 8pm, when his poor father had yet to finish eating the fish and chips. I swear, children are born persistent. I don’t know how they get this spirit beaten out of them as they grow up.

Somehow, I pacified him, at a cost to my beloved Friday afternoon of solitude.

So the next day, I went to pick him up at his school. We took a bus to Chong Pang, where I used his money to buy animal toys AND a crocodile lantern.

I hope he has moved on from the triceratops episode. I’m squirming, my body taut to receive more curveballs though.