Trying on the Words for Size

I walked around the corner of the kids' room today to see Jonathan scuttle into his closet.
He had a pencil in his hand and guilt in his countenance.
I turned in the direction from which he had come and discovered the beginnings of a stick figure scribbled on the back of the door.

"Jonathan!" I said in my You're in Trouble Now tone.
"I'm sorry Mama! I'm so sorry!" came the voice from the closet.
"Jonathan, come out here," I said. "You knew that what you were doing was wrong, didn't you?"
"YesbutIsaidIwassorry!"
"Jonathan, if you knew what you were doing was wrong, why did you choose to do it?" I suppose I was probing his understanding of original sin, maybe just a bit. His answers told me more than I would have guessed.

"Because...um uh...I was nervous?"
"No, I don't think you were nervous."
"Because I was, um, disappointed?"
"No, not disappointed."
"Because I was just a teeny bit confused!"
"How were you confused?'

Pause. Two. Three. Four.

"Because I was confused! I thought wrong was right and right was wrong! So I was doing right!" He smiled such a confident smile then, sure that his four year old mind had just out-logicked his own mama. Surely there was no way I could find fault with him after that!

How could I not laugh?
Seriously. That boy.
He still sat in the naughty chair, tho.