That song has been playing in my head for two days now. My daughter has been singing it randomly lately which feels surreal because she’s only six and that song’s like, 22 years old.

I asked her where she heard that song. From Slick Slime Sam, she said. This Youtube show she watches about this animated slime that looks like a D and is very handy with helping his friend, Sue, with arts and crafts.

Also, just last week, I started an “Oopsie Chart” for her. An initiative I decided to take in the hopes that she learns how not to be the perfectionist she’s starting to become. A trait she probably unwittingly picked up from me but I know what it feels like and if anything, I want her to be my new and improved version so I felt like I really had to do something.

The latest trigger? She was reading a book and she read a word wrong and threw a tantrum because of it.

“I KNOW HOW TO READ THE WORD ‘PUT’ BUT I READ IT AS ‘PUPPY’!” she wailed right up at bedtime until her sobs turned into silent snores.

No amount of “It’s okay to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes.” could console her. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly in the best headspace to deal with her and my patience was running low. For both our sakes, all I could do was breathe. Hold her close to me until she fell asleep. And once she did, that’s when I started to collect myself and thought of strategies of how to teach her the lesson about mistakes as lessons.

I thought of buying a book about it, but then it’s all just gonna be theories. I wanted it to be a lived experience on her part. So at 1am, mentally exhausted and my energy drained from wasting it on Instagram as diversion, I came up with the the idea of a reward chart. For making mistakes.

I know, it sounds counterintuitive but right now, that’s all I can come up with. And until I find something better, I’d stick with the plan. We’re down to four stickers out of ten before she gets a Lego Muppets minifigure as her reward.

The objective is that every time she makes a mistake and tries again or fixes the problem without making a big fuss about it, she earns a sticker.

The day that reward system was put in place, she eagerly announced to me: “Mama, I made two oopsies at school today!”

Apparently, there are 12 Lego Muppets minifigures to collect. And they all come in a bloody mystery bag so by the time the lesson is ingrained in her, I’m broke.

But, yeah, as much as I want her to do well in everything she does, I don’t want her to get caught up with getting it perfect each and every time. As long as she tries her best and keeps trying when things don’t work out, I’m happy.

Parenting is hard, man.

On the lighter side of things, Met-Met invited me to go op shopping down the road today. One of those things we do together once in a while as a way of catching up while getting a bit of retail therapy. I told myself I was just gonna go and have a look but guess who came home with all these.

I do love my local op shop, though. The two older ladies manning the checkout counter are the kind of grannies I would love to have. They’re very helpful, too. Today, there was another older lady who dropped one of the items on the floor and one of the checkout lady came to her aid (‘here, let me pick that up for you’) when they both obviously looked like they had back issues. You know what I mean?

So, yeah, I will continue to support that little shop for as long as I can. As a matter of fact, I dropped off three bags of donations today but with all the stuff I came out with, I don’t know if I’m actually decluttering or just cancelling things out.

So, yeah, that’s my oopsie today. #sorrynotsorry