Marker Woes

Yesterday Josiah bought a book on how to draw Transformers. I read my own book while he sat at the kitchen table and worked on his drawings. After a while he came out and said, "I'm tired. Can you finish the drawing?" I refused for awhile, but after 30 minutes I gave in and agreed to help him if he sat with me. He had done a pretty good job, there were just too many steps and it was taking more time than he wanted. After a few minutes of working on the picture, Josiah moved over to work on a different picture.

I was wrapped up in drawing Optimus Prime when Josiah came over with a wet piece of paper. He had drawn the symbols for the Autobots and the Decepticons and was working on coloring one of them with purple marker. "Josiah, why is your paper all wet." When he looked up at me I could see tears beginning to well up. "It's not coming out."

"Oh, honey," I said, "marker doesn't come out of paper."

He walked to the counter to check the marker and then cried, "But the marker says 'washable'!"

I explained the marker was referring to washing out of clothes, not paper. He was disappointed, but went back to work on his art. A few minutes later he came over with a dripping red marker.

"Josiah, is the marker all wet?"

"Yes. I think the red is all gone."

"Did you put the marker under the water?"

"Yes. It had stuff on it... Can you put the red back?" He was clearly upset (again).

"I'm sorry, buddy, I can't put the red back," I said as tears started rolling down his cheeks. "Put the cap back on the marker and let it sit for awhile. Maybe it will be okay if we don't use it for a few minutes."

A little while later Al came home from a used bookstore. He proudly showed me a couple of new CDs he picked up. Then he said, "Look!" and proudly held up a copy of The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon. (At this point I should mention that Elijah has vandalized our house with a purple marker twice already. Once all over our downstairs, including our formerly white furniture, and more recently all over our upstairs. He wrote on the walls, the carpet, the refrigerator, his pillow...practically everything. Most of it came out, but it was still pretty frustrating.)

I looked at Al in disbelief. "You bought The Adventures of Harold and the Purple Crayon for a child who has taken his own adventures with a purple marker twice already?! Do you really want to encourage that?" Al gasped in sudden realization and quickly dropped the book in our kitchen garbage (which, conveniently, was right next to him).

We all laughed. Al retrieved the book and went to hide it somewhere until Elijah gets a little older and has more self-control.