I’m sitting on the couch, trying to pretend I’m not awake yet.

Michael suddenly runs to the bathroom to grab a wet wipe, and quickly returns and starts scrubbing down his little plastic slide.

“Don’t worry, daddy. I’ll get the germs off.”

“What?”

“It’s on the slide, right there,” he points to a black smudge at the end of the slide.

“What is that?”

“It’s okay, daddy. I’m cleaning it off,” he says brightly.

“But what is it?”

“Well…. it’s black stuff from the ink.”

“Ink?”

“Yes, ink. From the paint.”

“What paint?”

“Well…. it’s from the floor.”

“What ink? What paint? Where?” Now I am alarmed, and can already see I’ve got a delightful morning in store.

“Uh… well, it was… I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. Tell me what happened,” I say, getting up to address him and follow him to the origin of the issue.

“Uh, it was paint from the pen,” he said, walking toward the table.

“What pen?”

“It was here,” he says, pointing at the floor by the closet.

“I don’t see a pen. Where is the paint?”

“I don’t remember.”

“When did you do this?”

“Well, I was drawing on the slide, and I cleaned it off.”

“I know that part. Where is this pen? What paint did you use?”

“It was this,” he says, and picks up a colored pencil from the table.

“You drew on the slide with this?”

He nods, sheepishly.

“Is this okay to do?”

He shakes his head.

“Drawing is to be done on paper, with your mommy or daddy watching. Understand?”

He nods again.

“Okay. Don’t draw on stuff again!”

If I allowed myself to do so, I could imagine all sorts of other things that he might have drawn on this morning during the 30 minutes he was out of his room while his mom and I were frantically trying to wrap presents in privacy. And I could probably also imagine what he really might have gotten into that would have left a dark smudge, and why he would have assumed it had germs.

I could do that… but I won’t.

This is one of those situations where you avert your eyes and walk away whistling.