Purple Marker.

I am pretty sure she has an unseen pocket where she hides them for her main source of mischief.

I want to chew up every marker in our house and never see them again.

Or maybe let the dog do it.
(But I don't.)

I angrily pull the stained white bedspread from off my bed,

muttering dragon sized billows of steam from my mouth.

It's just another one of those things.

I fumble with the bundle.  I mutter.  I find the culprit and correct her for the 5,555 time, 

explaining the seriousness of her purple damage.

You will sit and listen to me and understand,

 or I will banish purple markers from your little life until you are daddy's age.

Her little brown eyes fill with tears as she tells me,

"I promise I'll never do it again,"

and I wonder just as soon as those falsehoods are spoken how soon until I'll see her purple signature again.

As I throw the victimized bedspread into the washer,

I get control of my thoughts and ask God to take my love of things

and measure them against helping to train her.

Perhaps I should just admit defeat, forever rid myself of my desire for white, clean things,

 and succumb to a purple bedspread.

Things aren't really what is important,

but when you work so hard to have a few "things",

it is hard to see them as such.

And I don't want her purpling up our entire house until she is 18 either.

The balance of correction and holding things loosely is a hard one to walk.

The soap drizzles over the smudge as I silently pray for us both:

her need to submit to where she may color and do what is right,

and mine to know the weight of teaching obedience tied to a light embrace of things that can be replaced...

or at least washed every other week.