I've already confessed.
I lie to my children.
Not big lies, but lies of desperation. And besides if an adult lies to a child and no other adults are around to hear it, was it really a lie?
I think not, just little fabrications of the truth.
1. Mr. Softee only delivers ice cream to kids that don't have any. You all know that when you hear that bell ringing, right around nap time and your children wake up from a dead sleep and run to the windows to catch a glimpse of the truck coming down the street, you wish you had a shot gun, to blow out it's tires and that little annoying musical bell. Forget the tires part, then the ice cream truck might be stuck right in front of your house. I refuse to give in to the Mr. Softee madness so, I tell my children that it's against the law for Mr. Softee to stop for children that already have ice cream in their freezers. What it should be, is against the law for Mr. Softee to drive down residential streets.
2. You can only talk about your birthday after Christmas, if you talk about it before Christmas, you don't get a party. From the day after George's birthday party, he started talking about his next birthday party 364 days away and 6 months later, still mentioned what he wanted. So a few days ago, my head spinning from the birthday lists he was giving me to remember,I told him the rule is that you can not talk about your birthday until after Christmas, his birthday is in march, or you don't get a party. And now that I think about it, he hasn't mentioned his birthday since I said that. But I can see his little head dreaming of a Speed Race Pinata, Lightning McQueen and Disney Cars gifts. UGH!
3. Toys at the grocery store are just on display to see what you like and buy it at the toy store. Do I even need to explain this one? Who buys toys at the grocery store anyway? It should be illegal to sell toys at the grocery store, when I am just trying to get my kids in and out of the store, without a major breakdown in calm rational behavior, theirs and mine.
4. You have to be at least 7 to have a dog and if you see someone younger with a dog, its not theirs, it's there Mommy and daddy's. I'm not ready for a dog. Being the pooper scooper to one being's poop at a time is enough for me to handle. I told this lie to my son when he was 4. Stupid me. I thought he would forget it, as if forget is in their vocabulary because every child under the age of 7 has a photographic memory and can spout off what you have ever said to them at a moments notice as if hitting the replay button on a tape recorder. In fact, he just mentioned this yesterday and he is now 5 1/2. This lie will come back to bite me when my son turns 7.
5. The water fountain (in whatever public place we happen to be in) is broken. This is especially for my daughter Sophia who would strip down to her swim suit and bathe in a water fountain if possible. She attracts to water fountains with a magnetic force so strong that nothing else in the waiting rooms matter, no books, no toys, no other children just that cool stream of water that runs down her chin, saturates her clothes and everything else within a 10 foot radius.
6. Babies are born from eating too much. I don't even want to enter the birds and the bees yet, so when my son told me, after the birth of our third, that I can have another baby if I just eat more and my belly gets big, I agreed.
7. Yes, you can take the bus to heaven. This is another one I didn't know how to touch. We discussed death, out of necessity and when I was trying to explain about heaven and spirits, maybe territory I should have never entered. My son spouted out that our friend's father, who had passed away at the time "better get to the bus stop because he didn't want to be late for the number 5 bus that goes to Heaven". And maybe he's right, who was I to disagree. Who knows how you really get there? I always imagine my spirit floating up towards a beautiful light. But maybe you find yourself at a bus stop on a quiet beautiful street and it's a dreamy bus ride to heaven on a white clean bus with plush seats.
8. If you don't wear your seat belts mommy will go to jail. This started when my son was big enough to transition to a Booster Seat with a back, with the seat belt. He would decide he didn't want to be strapped in and at a minutes notice, while driving at 65mph on the Schuylkill Expressway, he unbuckled himself, made his way to the front of the mini van, stood behind me and tapped me on the shoulder, giving me a heart attack with visions of accidents and him crashing through the windshield blasting through my head. I put him back in the 5 point harness seat for a couple months and now he's fine with the seat belt. And I thought I was out of the woods, but now my daughter does the same thing, only unbuckling the five point harness. They should make child locks for the five point harness, or some type of cover so that little determined fingers can't get at it
9. The return desk at Target is to return bad kids. Again it was a shopping trip that no one should ever have to experience and as my kids started fighting for the fifth time, while sitting in the back cart, I spouted out of desperation, that "if they did not stop acting up, I was going to return them to the returns counter, because Target takes back bad kids". The stopped, looked and gasped. To where you ask? I have no idea but they do take them back.
10. My kids only listen to their teachers, so I threaten to tell their teacher when they act up. I have good kids, even when they act up, compared to stories I have heard that I never want to experience, they are still good kids. But they are angels for their teachers, except the time my then 2 1/2 year old daughter laughed in the face of her teacher asking her to sit and listen for the 3rd time, but that's another story for another day. Anyway, this works especially for my son, he loves his teacher and she can not know that he is acting bad. If she were to walk in the house at this very moment, he would straighten up, raise his hand to speak and listen and obey. This does not work for my daughter who looks at me with that glare that says, go ahead, tell her.
11. Going along with number 10, I tell them there is a camera in the library and your teacher can see everything you do and knows when you are bad. We go to the library at my son's school, so this is only fitting and upon hearing me lie to him, the librarians went along with it and even showed them where the camera was. Maybe it wasn't a lie after all.
12.If you act bad in the store, we won't be invited back. For all I know this is true. And usually only best told in stores or places that your kids actually want to go, like Toys R Us, because I know if I said this in Wegmans my kids would put on a real good show.
13. I'm gonna tell daddy. I swore I would never say this. It's more of a threat then a lie, because I tell him, and they don't want me to tell daddy they were being bad. And you can't just say it, you have to walk over to the phone, pick it up and pretend talk to daddy too. That usually gets my son to drop to the floor, start crying and promise to stop whatever he is doing, every single time.
Please let me know that I am not alone and I need new material, what lies have you told your children?
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