My husband and I have been married for 15 years and have an awesome 12 year old daughter. They are close, but at this age she tends to gravitate more towards me because I’m mom!

One of her two gerbils passed away last week and my husband and I had discussed not getting a gerbil mate replacement yet because the remaining gerbil is quite old for a gerbil and he had told our daughter that, which upset her understandably. Yesterday we privately discussed changing our minds because our gerbil seems really lonely and clingy to us and so we reconsidered that maybe she isn’t too old and would like another playmate. But we hadn’t told our daughter yet we had changed our minds.

Last night I made a parenting snafu, and I’m a therapist and a big softie so I was really upset about it after our daughter fell asleep. Basically our daughter is super anxious and prone to embarrassment and question I asked made her SUPER visibly embarrassed and shut down and she went to sleep that way. I didn’t mean any harm but I was kicking myself a bit.

So I told my husband after she went to bed, and he was reassuring and really sweet. But then he said ok in the morning tell her I was really against the gerbil but you talked me into it and so we will go this weekend. I just thought it was so sweet and considerate that he would give me the “street cred” as they say. Any of you that have pre-teen kids know how precious those points can be as a parent.

It’s a small thing but I just felt like 15 years in this man still will think of new and creative ways to show me love.