The Truth.

Lying. Interesting how a person begins to understand the art of the lie. Noah doesn't have the capacity to lie...yet.

Maddies lies consisted of avoiding confirming our suspicions of having a dirty diaper. Her lack of a verbal response was totally blown by her facial expression!!! Cute lying. Totally cute lying. She then progressed to the turn-and-run or the smile-tilt-the-head-so-super-cute forms of avoidant lying. Now she has gotten to the straight up "NOPE" response to our inquiries or the worst The Evil Eye. I believe The Evil Eye serves to buy her time to come up with another out....or to get distracted by something else. I should say too that in all cuteness (and from a place of motherly love), Maddie has a lazy eye. Depending on how lazy it is being at the time she can look devilishly cute and doe-eyed or truly totally evil.

Jack didn't really care to lie until he was about three and a half. This is when he began to really plan ahead and foresee consequences. Usually I would hear an "Oops" and he would straight up tell me that he had sprayed the basement with a whole warehouse size can of lysol or punched yet another hole in the wall in his room. That was okay, then he read about Pinocchio. When attempting to lie to us he would follow his statement by asking if his nose was growing. He then was able to generalize this to our conversations to see if we were teasing him. He would ask if our noses were growing....or better yet take a really good look at our faces.

Today we added another type of lie. Jack and I had a grocery shopping date. We had a successful trip, he was being a great helper and building towers in the cart out of the groceries. When I began to bag the groceries I noticed a package of gum that I hadn't put in the cart. I asked Jack about this and he told me he hadn't put the package in the cart either. I told him that I believed him and continued to bag the groceries. Another minute later he came to me and said "I guess I did put the gum in the cart...is my nose growing?" This is a parenting dilemma. Do I scold him for putting the gum in the cart without telling me then lying, or do I tell him that I'm glad he told the truth?

Combo.

"Jack you need to ask before you put things into the cart, that was sneaky. I'm glad you told me the truth, but I wished you would have told me the truth right away. I'll have to keep reminding you of the rules until you are able to remind yourself". Its so hard to really put a lot of weight and consequence into these little lies. But I have my eyes on the teenage years when there is most certainly going to be all types of lying attempts.

I think what I really am trying to do is make sure that these kiddos know that their parent base is strong, stable and consistent and that the truth is valued very highly.

That's if I can keep a straight face during the tilt-the-head Pinocchio nose phase first.