I bought my kid a pair of red shoes. They’re covered in white polka dots and bedecked with white bows on the toes. I didn’t like them. She loved them. I said yes. She was beaming, floating on air, not just because they are bright and fancy, but because I let her pick.

Now I love those shoes too, not because they’re bright and fancy, but because they make her feel so good about herself and her choices. May it always be so.

She and I are dancing around the edges of a showdown on her new bedroom. She wanted to paint it “all rainbows, with red on that wall and orange on that wall and blue on that wall and …” etc. I dodged that bullet and we settled on a bright blue that she calls turquoise and that reminds me of the Caribbean ocean.

But we only painted that color (Sherwin Williams Belize) on one wall. Busted. Her High Empress is … displeased.

I have several adult votes on the side of standing firm, but it’s amazing how the will and persistence of a six-year-old feels weightier.

Also. The secret is … I kind of like the idea of painting the whole thing to feel like a goddamned tropical ocean. My advisers tell me it will make it feel too small. Or that it will be “too much.” But somehow it doesn’t feel done, to me.

I should be happy it’s blue, right? Since one day, she’ll want to paint her bedroom black and invite her friends over to smash red handprints all over her homemade loft bed and lock the door and play Depeche Mode’s “Black Celebration” on repeat and wait that was me.

I know it’s just paint, but I don’t want to pick up another paintbrush for a very long time after moving day.

What do you think?

(And should I paint the window trim?)

(Consider: carpet will be pale cream. Furniture is white. The wall opposite the window is mostly doors — mirrored double-sliders on the closet, white door to the dining room. Wall to the left has a white door to the bathroom.)