late submission of school work for the first time

Last night, Daddy checked Renzo's comm book in his school bag and we were shocked to dig out a piece of paper with instructions in Chinese from his Teacher Yang, dated Feb 22, requesting students to draw and color their favorite fruit on a paper plate, and bring to school, on Feb 25!!!

My brain was buzzing at the moment I read the deadline and I didn't even know how to react to it. For the very first time, WE made our boy miss his deadline for submitting school work!!!

Usually I am the one checking his school bag daily and make sure all information provided by his school teachers / principal on his comm book are properly read, acknowledged, and executed. So no excuse here, I didn't check his comm book during the weekend and we just MISSED it!!

I pulled Renzo aside and asked him.

"Did Zandon bring a paper plate to school today??"
"Yes Mummy!", said Renzo..
"Did Lakisha bring a paper plate to school today??"
"Yes Mummy!", he answered happily again.
"So did Renzo bring a paper plate to school today??"
"No, Renzo forget to bring the paper plate..." the big frown on his face made me feel extremely miserable and I hugged him and said, "No Renzo, it's mummy who forgot about the paper plate, I am really sorry!"..

Then I asked him if his Teacher Yang said anything about it, he couldn't answer besides telling me Teacher Yang speaks Chinese (well maybe that's the reason he couldn't express probably although I am sure he understands Chinese well enough). Anyway so I told him let's make sure we get it done in the next 20 minutes and bring it to school the next morning. He replied "Mummy, if I forget the paper plate again tomorrow, I will be very sad!!" =(

I read the Chinese instructions to him word by word, and he repeated that in English so I was certain that he fully understood what he supposed to do. For the next half an hour, he diligently followed Daddy's instruction to draw his favorite fruit - GRAPE on a piece of paper, he insisted to draw more than 9 grapes, and Daddy has to draw everything in dotted line for him to trace as he wasn't confident enough to do it on his own after a few tries, and it was too late at night so we just have to get it settled in a quicker way.

After Renzo finished drawing and coloring his grapes, guess what? He decided to write his name!! He did it all on his own without any help in spelling or writing.

While Daddy was cutting and pasting the GRAPES and his NAME onto the paper plate, Renzo grabbed a green pencil (his favorite color) and wrote this on another piece of paper. It took me a while to figure out what he wrote there: "GRAPS FRETS", and he said he wrote "GRAPES FRUITS".. Well done my little boy although the spelling is not 100% right but it's good effort from you!!!!

It's pretty obvious that he writes better than he draws! And of course, for Daddy and I, we promised to check his comm book daily till he is able to read it on his own independently!