Argumentation

Our neighbor stopped by with a bunch of vegetables from his garden.  This led to the unlikely scenario of having to tell Lyla to hang up the cucumber and wash up for dinner.

In other news, Julie and I were sitting and talking about our day when suddenly we noticed a lot of quiet coming from the kitchen.  We found Lyla and Rowan at the table with paintbrushes, glasses of water, and a stamp ink pad.  They were painting.

We had previously rejected Lyla's request to get out the paints.  "Too close to bedtime," we told her, and she sulked.  So seeing them there painting sort of represented a direct nose-thumbing at our parental authority.  Lyla got down from her chair and faced us, hands on hips.

"First," she began, raising an index finger at us, "we really wanted to paint."  Her middle finger joined her index finger.  "Second, the other paints are very messy, and these paints are not messy."

"Huh," I said.

"Okay then," Julie said.

Then Lyla turned on one heel and returned to the table.