Just past six o’clock this morning, Olof and I were wakened by nightmare-induced yelling from Petra, who sleeps in the room next to ours. “No, no, no!” she yelled. “No, Tage! No!”

We called out to try to wake her, but when that didn’t work Olof got up and brought her to our bed. I wrapped her up in my blanket and cuddled her close to me, murmuring what I hoped were comforting sweet nothings.

She wouldn’t be consoled, however, still held by the dream that had destroyed her peaceful slumber. “Tage do it,” she wailed. “Tage do it, my Princess Peach.”

“What?” I asked her. “What did Tage do?”

“My Princess Peach pen … Tage do it. Tage write on paper.”

Oh, to have such subliminal fears as someone else writing with my pen (where “writing with my pen” isn’t a metaphor for something much more sinister, I mean).  Two-year-olds have it so easy.