Home alone with my kids earlier on this morning, we came up with a plan of our activities for the day. Soon afterward my daughter tried to sweet-talk me into altering our plan.

Agbenu: “Dad, we don’t have to but, please can we eat out at Chick-fil-A instead of to-go? I’d like to play in their play place.”

Me: “Ok mama, so how many things did say we have to do today?”

Agbenu: “Emm… run your errand to the office; get Chick-fil-A; buy batteries for the Wii remote control from the store; come back home, and eat; go to the swimming pool; then you will go to your business meeting in the evening.”

Me: “Ok mama, if we eat out at Chick-fil-A and play in their play place then we won’t have time to go swimming. So, you will need to decide on which one you want.”

Agbenu: “Oh, I wanna go swimming.”

Me: “Also mommy cooked a yummy soup that I can’t wait to eat. That’s why I won’t be getting something to eat from Chick-fil-A.”

Agbenu: “Oh.”

Me: “So that means we’ll make out time for each stuff we want to do, and when that time is up, we move on to the next. So y’all will get your Chick-fil-A to-go, we come back home, I have my ona (pounded yam – Nigerian fufu) and yum soup…everyone eats what they want at home. Then we go swimming. Right?”

Agbenu: “Right.”

Me: “That’s called compromise.”

Agbenu: “What’s that?”

Me: “It’s when you make a little sacrifice and I make a little sacrifice and we can accept each other’s choices so we can work together.”

Agbenu: “Oh… ok dad one more question.”

Me: “Yes.”

Agbenu: “So when you go to your business meeting will you come back after we have gone to bed?”

Me: “No.”

Agbenu: “So can we play bowling on the Wii when you come back?”

Me: “That’ll depend on how tired we are. But I’ll be home on Sunday and the whole of next week, and we’ll have a lot of time to play.”

Agbenu: “Yeah!!! (hugs)”

Me: “So why don’t you go and start getting ready, so we can go.”

Agbenu: “Ok dad.” (runs off).

She thinks she has me wrapped up in her little finger! 😉 Great dialogue though!

Now at the end of the day – a quick run through our checklist of activities for today:

• Errand to the office
• Chick-fil-A
• Batteries for the Wii remote control
• Back home to eat
• Swimming
• Business meeting

Goals accomplished, day off well-spent. Goodnight. 😴 😴

– 8/13/17