A solid question that every parent asks themselves at least 2 times a day. Generally, with a hefty chunk of cynicism in the tone of the voice in our heads. That parent-ish voice that is constantly prompting a flashy red "WT actual F?" in neon lights into the back of our pupils. The anatomic ones, not those that our children supposedly are, yet so successfully resist to be.
But although that question is usually asked after the kids creating an unfathomable amount of chaos in an inconceivably short amount of time, today, I asked it myself seriously.
Does my kid has some kind of power to manipulate the universe?
You see, yesterday I wrote about today being my last day of my vacation and getting to Hamburg today. Guess what? You guessed right. And if you didn't, please sit on the silent stairs for an hour. For some reason, I woke up in the middle of what is usually my deep sleep phase, and 90min before the "I might wake up to pee, depending on how much and what I drank the night before"-phase, at 1.30am. And for some reason I checked the phone. I don't do that at night, it wakes me up. But I did. And boy, did I wake up! As if Serj Tankian was in my face screaming that famous first line (love that song & band!).
"Your booking needs attention!"
Yeah, well, no shit, Sherlock, you got it, my whole, undivided flowery attention at a refreshing 1.30am in the morning. Suck it all up, dear KLM App, it's all yours, don't worry about my sleep. You'd make an great Tamagotchi!
Okay, breath. Breeeaaaath. Done. Remember your guess? That's where we are now. Nothing I could do at that time, though I obviously crawled through the internet trying to find out what to do. But the KLM Whatsapp bot got useless instantly, stubbornly sending always the same unsuitable message, and the office didn't open until 8am (they never answered the phone afterwards, either). And the big flight from AMS to UIO was still 30h away.
Talk about putting my stoicism to a test...
So, I turned on my favorite philosophy podcast, and thanks to the topic being Shakespeare (who'd guessed that old quill torturer could be interpreted from a philosophy standpoint! That would've changed my attitude towards his work in English classes!) I fell asleep rather quickly until Lily woke me up coming for some snuggles after she woke up.
Oh, right. Lily. Now, the flight is completely cancelled, too much snow and wind and bla. Lily's mom understood, which was one of my worries - I have a legal obligation to bring Lily back into Ecuador tomorrow. And Ecuadorian law usually stands above all reason and logic, so something extraordinary like "impressively bad weather that lowers the chances of surviving the flight" might be dismissed as "fantasy" if it comes to it.
But now the scary part - it's exactly what Lily wanted. Top of the list of her wishes to Santa was snow. Okay, it was second, first was a puppy that she then would leave in the care of my mother when we'd go back to Ecuador (got that idea from my brother who pulled off something similar once, great dog). And then, yesterday, she was like "Oh, I'd like to stay a little longer to play a little more with the snow. I haven't built a big snowman yet."
Tadaaaa, it's magic!
Next day, flight cancelled, too much snow. Coincidence, you think? When we arrive, there was no snow forecast at all. Not even below 0°C temperatures until the mid of January. Okay, forecasts fail. But guess where mom took Lily today? To see puppies at a friend's of hers! She sent a video of Lily sitting among the puppies crawling all over her, high as a kite on puppy love, smiling from one ear to the next and two times around the head! Remember her wish list? Top and second?
Oh no, no coincidence! She's not getting a puppy, of course, we have like a bazillion street dogs in Ecuador, waiting to be adopted as soon as we find a suitable home to move into. But still. I'm wary now. I suspect that she's developing a super power that influences the universe in her favor.
But no worries. She's a good kid, I'm taking care of that. If she really has that super power, the world might even be better off.
I hope you got a chuckle out of this. Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!
