Coco came crying into my room an hour after she was supposed to be asleep.

She was remembering that I forgot to take her to final school choral concert.

I practiced those songs for days! I can’t let my mind forget it.

It’s absolutely true. I messed up the days on the calendar. I blew it. We all know these kids are little sponges and soak up what we do and say, but I forget how deep those impressions go. I was hoping, being she’s seven, she’d forget about it. Instead it popped up and there it was again. Imagine all the others things we "do" to kids. The littlest of seeds gets planted in those psyches and pop out like worms in an apple: it’s there, we just don’t see it.

I mess up. I said. I make mistakes. It’s a lot, I told her, all this parenting stuff on my own. But if you give me another chance, we can give it a go tomorrow.

We both said thank you for three things, and she snuggled next to her lion and soon began to snore. I went back to check on my son and he was grinding his teeth as if he was determined to get them out of his mouth. At midnight, he woke up and we spent two hours playing until he fell asleep.

It’s a bit much, these kids, but I’ll get up and take a bite of the day again.