"Mama, don't come in here!"

This evening I was cooking dinner and Ella was in the living room coloring. It was really quiet--which is normal for her when coloring. I asked a couple of times--are you o.k. Ella? "Yes" was the quick reply. Then after a few minutes I realized that I wasn't hearing the actual "coloring" of the marker or crayon on the paper, which I usually can hear. So I walk around the corner, and immediately her hands go behind her back and she starts yelling, "Don't come in here! I didn't want you in here! Please don't come in here!" I quickly realized this was not the usual disappointment over my seeing a "surprise" she was making for me. So I said, "Ella, what are you doing?" "Ella, you're not going to be in trouble but I need you to tell me what you're doing." She then says, "coloring." "On your paper?" "No, on my fingers and hands." O.k., let me see them please. She pulls her hands out and I see she has picked the color BLACK to color the entire tips of all her fingers and decorate her arms. I calmly continue while trying not to laugh, and say "Ella where are we supposed to color?" She of course says "on paper". I then said, you need to promise me you will only color on paper from now on. She agrees and we go to the bathroom to wash it all off, after I take a picture of course! :-)

So here's my question of the day for those of you older than I: "What did you do before the invention of washable markers?????"