Tribal Markings

These are markings that indicate, to those in the know, that a certain one of my children has recently passed through the region.  As soon as I saw her, happily swinging with all of her tribal markings, I stop dead in my tracks and bellowed - "ZION DAVID MILLER!!!!!!"  Few things make me bellow as loud (although I also did soon after that bellow as loud if not louder when I turned around and someone had knocked an almost full can of baby snacks to the floor and NOT returned to pick them up and Zion was busy driving his plasma car through them....but hey, I digress) as the concern that someone has marked the baby from head to toe with black permanent marker.  The children in the room next to me blink at me owlishly and survey the damage.  Elder Brother, also known as Keeper Of The Law, is hotly indignant.

"THAT ZION!!!" He gesticulates wildly.  "He has been doing that EVERYWHERE with these markers and now he has marked all over the baby and I think that the next time I see him I AM GOING TO PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!"  He stomps over to the office to look onto the porch, where tousle-haired mischief maker is padding in from the outside.  "He just needs to be PUNCHED IN THE FACE!!!"

I give him a mildly rebuking glance. "No punching in the face.  Everything is just fine."

I turn to the guilty party, who has been obtained and is standing before me looking furtive.  He knows that he's done something wrong, he's just not sure which thing it was, since things are constantly busy in Zion Land, and one never knows which Destruction He Hath Wrought is currently under examination.  This has happened to him before.  "Did you mark all over the baby?!"

"Yes," he responds, and immediately leads me on a search for the offending marker, which turns out to be the new package of dry erase markers (PHEW!!!) that have also been busy on the door, walls, and other items, including the baby's toenail.  We have a teaching moment where we examine the reality that dry erase markers are for dry erase boards ONLY, and life returns to normal, all face punching averted.  At least for now.