An Artist in the Making

I think my youngest has discovered a possible promising career path as a tattoo artist. For some reason, the fascination of putting ink to skin captivates my child.  The latest and greatest artistic incident came about because she was pretending to be a dog.  She announced that she was a dog and I saw her racing up and down the hallway on all fours, though I wasn't as tuned in as I could have been when the "dog" disappeared. A few minutes later, the dog returned panting and wagging its tail happily, with an abundance of BLUE fur. Covering her arms and legs, were carefully penned lines to resemble dog hairs. And to transform oneself into a fur covered dog, I am here to inform you that you must have several hundred "hairs" on your body. Fortunately for her, she found a pen that seemed to be resistant to soap and water, so she was able to keep up the imaginary dog play for the rest of the day.  Later that evening, we began round two of scrubbing.  It dawned on me that the last time we had a doctor's appointment for my youngest, this same doctor was treated to some of her personal body art that had escaped my notice until we arrived at his office. I scrubbed harder. The pen marks did not want to relinquish their claim on her skin.  They were faint, but certainly not gone by any stretch.  I had to admit defeat and hope that the doctor did not ask why my child had ink fur. Additionally, as we produced her brace at the appointment, we opened it to put it on her so that the doctor could see if it fit properly, and inside were several BLACK pen marks.  By now, I had no words.  Must we hide all pens from our child?  Ban pens from our house altogether? The doctor said nothing, even now, but he clearly noticed the pen marks.  My husband cleared his throat, and said, "Uh, she had an itchy spot."  This was news to me, and I said, "You let her use a PEN?" And he answered, "I didn't LET her use a pen, she lost a pen INSIDE the brace. I just removed it." Moments like these make me wonder, if there are any sane parents left in the world, or if we are all operating at just a hair under crazy.