artistic temperament

This afternoon, Sage, our helper Lhen, and I were all in Dean's and my bedroom. Sage was playing, and Lhen and I were busy doing our respective work, just keeping an ear out in case Sagey needed anything. So it wasn't until too late that I turned around and saw that she had covered almost an entire wall of the bedroom with multicolored pencil scribbles.

"Sage," I cried out, aghast, "look what you've done! You know you're not supposed to write on the walls."

"But I want to write on the walls," she said, frowning and clearly spoiling for a fight.

"No," I said sternly. "You know it makes our home look messy, and Ate Lhen will have a hard time cleaning it up."

Lhen, trying to help, chimed in, "Your daddy will get mad, Sage."

At this, to my great surprise, Sage's face just... crumpled. "Daddy will be mad at me!" she sobbed, tears trickling down her face.

I quickly took her in my arms and soothed her as well as I could--while still trying to convey that graffiti is a no-no. "No, honey, Daddy won't be mad at you," I told her, "He'll just be sad that our wall is messy, but he'll know you didn't mean to do anything bad."

After a while, she wiped away her own tears and quietly extricated herself from my arms. "Mommy, I want my toothbrush," she said.

I gave her her toothbrush, and she went and filled the small bucket in the bathroom with water, lugging it with effort towards the offending wall. Then she set the bucket down, dipped her toothbrush in the water, and started scrubbing away at the colorful scribbling. "Daddy will be proud of me," she murmured, with quiet certainty.

It was time to get her a new toothbrush, anyway.