A couple of days ago, something strange happened as I dropped Nuno off at school. Just like most days, after I pulled up to the curb, the prefects opened the car door and Nuno wrangled his backpack on before jumping out of the car. Just as he got his backpack on and was about to get out of the car I told him I loved him. In that instant my darling boy looked at me and then at the prefects as if to say, “Who she talkin’ to? I don’t know this lady.” And out he jumped unto the curb without looking back at me or replying that he loved me.

Now, “I love you” is something I tell the people I love. If they are the last words that I utter to somone, then there is some peace in my world. I asked Nuno once if he knew I loved him and his response was, “Of course, you’ve told me like a thousand million times!!!”

Well, it’s good that he knows I love him, but this Portuguese mother was not about to stop telling her son she loved him, so we struck up a compromise. I asked Nuno to come up with a coded phrase that will mean I love you when we say it to each other. My darling little boy came up with “Ni hao” to which I replied, “We’re going to say hello in Japanese as our I love you?!?!” Looking at me as if I was an absolute moron, he says, “It’s Chinese mom!”

So day one went well. But it’s just wasn’t enough. So yesterday I asked if I could tell him a million times before we arrived at the drop-off point. Fortunately he agreed. And like music to my ears, his response was, “I love you too mom.”