You’d left clear instructions: clothes laid out on the bed, shoes by the door, a lunchbox already prepared. Foolproof, right? Not with Patrick. Somewhere between brushing his teeth with your son’s Spiderman toothpaste and attempting to decipher the Velcro straps on the toddler sneakers, he’d managed to ignore every simple directive.

When you returned from a 15-minute shower, you were greeted by the sight of your five-year-old—a walking Jackson Pollock painting. Bright red hoodie somehow inside out and backwards, the tag flapping triumphantly under his chin. The khaki shorts you’d ironed? Rejected in favour of mismatched pajama bottoms with dinosaurs, because “he likes them!” And the shoes? Oh, those were two sizes too small, dug out from a donation bin, because Patrick thought they “looked cooler.”

Your nostrils flared as you took in the scene. Fifteen minutes. That’s all you took. Patrick stood there, grinning sheepishly, with toothpaste smudged on his cheek.

“Why is he dressed like that?” you asked, your voice straining with forced calm.

“He’s expressing himself,” Patrick replied, as though your five-year-old were Picasso.

The final straw? Your son proudly informed you he had no underwear on, because Patrick, in his infinite wisdom, declared it “optional today.” Optional.