Free Fridays: Her apology letters.

10 October 2025

Today is Sarah’s birthday!

She turns seven today so I thought I’d write about her.

That little sunshine of ours grew up so chubby and cute, and now has grown into a little lady who has lost all her baby fat. Boooo. What she hasn’t lost though, fortunately is her sunshine. Her ability to capture your heart and turn everything to suddenly become endearing.

Even apology letters.

I have folders of the kids’ drawings and letters since they were small till now. This is something I inherited from my dad – he never allowed us to buy cards, we had to make them. So now I too developed this tradition of keeping folders of my kids’ “masterpieces”.

Some of Sarah’s ones.

Lots of blackmail material in here.

Apart from the sweet birthday cards, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day etc, my personal favourite is actually the apology letters. Every time I scold them about something, I demand an apology letter. They have to write what happened, what lesson they learned and what they’re going to do differently in the future. You know, fun stuff.

Daniel and Mariam write theirs beautifully. Lots of sorry’s and will never do it again’s – usual stuff.

But Sarah.

Wow.

Her apology letters are unique.

I’ll share two with you.

The first one is about her always complaining. Why are we eating this, why do I have to shower right now, why is my playdate so short – omg it’s constant why’s and although I love that she questions things and doesn’t just listen to anything people say, I also don’t want her to grow up ungrateful. So one day, we scolded her about her complain-y attitude and demanded an apology letter.

She came back with this:

“No blaming others. No complaining. No excuses. No playing songs straight away. No playing devices too long. Listen to your parents. Be grateful for what you have.”

“Also I have: Family, parents, money, siblings, toys of course, aunties and uncles, food and water and a lot more. Can’t wait to tell you more about me. Love, Sarah. That’s all for now. Bye-bye.”

Can you imagine it started off so serious, then “oh can’t wait to tell you more about me!” She siap “bye-bye”, guys.

What kind of apology letter is this?!

Then the second example. This was about a grape. That’s right, a grape.

It’s sooo hard to get my kids to eat fruits and worse, vegetables so now I’ve gone into forcing mode. Idris loves them, thank God. Daniel and Mariam are easier, but Sarah is by far the most stubborn. She will sit at the table for an hour until you get sick of it and you’ll give up.

But Mama ain’t no quitter, Sarah.

So I forced her to eat a grape. I kept telling her how nice it is, it’s sweet bla bla. But she was unconvinced and refused to put it in her mouth. It became a full-on argument because she and I got frustrated with each other. In the end, she did put it in her mouth. But refused to chew it. Ya Allah. She just kept it in her mouth and looked at me.

“Chew it,” I said. So she chewed once.

“Chew again,” I said. So she chewed a second time.

Oh. My. God! This was going to take ages.

And it did.

To the point I got so frustrated I put her on time out and she had to stand until she finished her grape. Finally she finished it all, but I was already exhausted and angry. I gave her a lecture about being grateful for food, and then insisted on an apology letter.

Here it is.

When Fadza read it, he burst out laughing.

Look at the number of “so” she wrote! And her apology letter got a chatroom ya, guys!

“Anyways, any request?”

So I made her draw the grape.

She asked first “two or one?”

Then she did a math formula 2-1=1 and complimented herself “great job on your test”. Grrrrr.

But when she went to sleep that night, I re-read the letter and found myself smiling to myself. By that time, I wasn’t frustrated anymore so I could see the humour and charm in this letter, like how Fadza immediately did.

Sigh, Sarah. You drive me up the wall sometimes, but when the dust settles, you always make it up in your unique sunshine-y ways. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m actually excited for more apology letters from you. Because you’re going to grow up so fast, and one day, these letters will stop coming.

I shall treasure each one - even if it’s about grapes.

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Before you go…

Let me know you’ve read this. Comment “happy birthday!” on my latest post at @sincerelyvivy.

See you there! :)