Tage has recently discovered a love for the old (well, old-ish–it came out when I was a teenager) Disney series, Darkwing Duck. As luck would have it, we had stashed away in a box an old Darkwing videotape that my mom had given Lydia several years ago, and Tage was delighted when we gave it to him. In the past few weeks he’s watched it more times than I care to remember. He’s even learned the theme song, and it’s unbelievably cute when he sings, sotto voce “Let’s get .. dangerous.”

This morning after breakfast he asked me to put in the tape for him, but I couldn’t find it in the VCR or with the other videotapes. After digging around for a bit, I unearthed it on the coffee table, It was lying, sticky, under the debris left by Lydia and her friend after last night’s sleepover. Evidently they had taken it from the VCR, put it where it didn’t belong, then spilled a drink on or near it, and to make a long story short, the tape was ruined. Disaster.

I was upset and disappointed and not a little angry with Lydia who is careless beyond words sometimes. It was probably a good thing for all of us that she wasn’t home when tape tragedy was discovered, as I’m sure I would have said more than one regrettable thing (I’m careless myself at times, especially with words). By the time she got home, I had more or less recovered from my disappointment (the few used Darkwing tapes I found on Amazon helped somewhat in that regard), and I decided to leave the tape discussion for later.

When she came upstairs, fairly flushed with excitement, I was glad I hadn’t gone immediately on the offensive. She and her friend had been to a flea market and I had half-expected her to return home cranky and disappointed in her own right, since I’d given her only 25 kronor ($3-4) to spend. Instead she ran up to me to show off her flea-market finds — a wall-hanging for me, a glasses case for her dad, and a little ceramic alligator for Tage and Petra to share. She was the very picture of generosity, visibly proud of having thought of all of us before herself.

Just when I was thinking that she needed a lesson, it was Lydia who taught me a thing or two.