He was very excited to get the Shunichi yoyo. He was already halfway there with his yoyo skills. His yoyo could go down with a plonk on the floor. Now all he had to do was to learn how to get it to spin back up and I would be able to retire and live off his professional yoyo career.

On Facebook, a friend who also got one for her kid helpfully told me that I needed to cut the string of the yoyo (measure from his waist down, she said), so that Isaac could play with it better.

So I cut the string for him. But the Super Yoyo clone had other problems. The string could not secure itself firmly to the centre axle of the yoyo and we had trouble winding it up.

"Papa! You spoiled it! You cut the string and that's why it does not work anymore!" cried Isaac, his dreams of being a professional yoyo player dashed.

"No, no. It's because the string is no good. Papa will find a way to fix it, ok?"

Kicking myself for blowing $4.90 on this piece of plastic junk with a faulty string, there was only one thing left to do.