She didn’t say “I don’t want to go to bed.”
She hit me with “You don’t have jurisdiction.”
Three feet tall. Dinosaur pajamas. Eyes like a defense attorney who already knows they’re going to win.
I have been prepping for law school like a lunatic. Reading case law till my brain fries. Cross-examining my reflection at two in the morning. None of that helped me when my own kid filed an oral motion for “later bedtime” right there in the living room.
She came with precedent too.
“Last night you let me stay up because of the storm.”
“That was an emergency exception,” I told her.
“But you set the precedent that bedtime can change,” she said, leaning on something I swear sounded like the Doctrine of Implied Permission.
I tried to shut it down with a final ruling. She filed an appeal on the spot.
The appellate court was two stuffed animals and the dog. The stuffed animals ruled in her favor. The dog abstained, probably sleeping through the whole thing.
Bedtime stood. She still went to sleep.
But I know the truth. I lost. Not because she stayed up but because she made me see the future.
One day, she’s going to beat me in court wearing those same pajamas.