I took the baby for a walk around the block hoping she would fall asleep in her stroller, intoxicated by the fresh air, also hoping I wouldn’t fall asleep by the same logic. She did (I didn’t) and I opted to park her just outside the front door, enter the house through the garage myself so as not to wake her with the squeaky mechanics of a heavy garage door.

I noticed when carrying her through the front door something strange etched in the paint. An upper case letter A about the size of a large pizza, a series of scribbles and a few other letters, perhaps from another alphabet, I have yet to decipher.

I was going to have to use the divide and conquer approach to find a rat willing to tell me exactly who was responsible for the graffiti requiring a new paint job and what they were hoping to achieve with these gigantic scarlet letters.

Ellie, do you know who might have scratched the letter A on our front door?

Ellie very quickly responding: I have absolutely no idea Mom. No idea whatsoever. None. No idea at all.

Hmmmmm.

After school, I asked Hanna the same question.

Hanna: Well, wait a second. Do you mean the front door? Like our front door? Or do you mean the side door because sometimes we call the side door the front door so I’m just a bit confused by what door?

Me: The front door. The one we always call the front door. The one we never call the side door.

Hanna: Oh yeah. That was me and Ellie. We found a bone in the garden and we were drawing with it.

I decided to ask Ellie again after Hanna’s confusing confession, first letting her know that her older sister had already explained the finding of the bone and the conversion of said bone into a writing utensil (why I haven’t questioned the bone yet will remain another mystery).

Ellie: Oh, I thought you asked about the letter E. Yeah, we wrote an A on the front door. I’m pretty sure you asked who wrote the E on the door. Not us Mom. Not us.

Me: So when I asked you if you knew who scratched the letter A on the front door…..

Ellie: Oh, I thought you said in China or something like that.