We were hiking over the weekend when our youngest managed to
find a discarded red jelly bean in the middle of the woods. This child is destined to appear on the show Hoarders
someday. The “treasures” he finds and
clings to with dear life would make you want to douse yourself with hand
sanitizer! So it should come as no
surprise that at the end of our hike, I pulled a bait and switch followed up
with a little white lie. He put the
coveted jellybean down to indulge in his hiking reward (fruit snacks). I scooped up that little red devil and hurled
it back into the woods when he wasn’t looking.
He finished his fruit snacks and immediately started looking for the
jelly bean. He became alarmed when he
couldn’t find it and asked me where it was.
I didn’t so much as flinch when I told him a bird ate it.
As soon as the words left my mouth, I nearly gasped at the
lie I just told my son. Then I nearly
laughed as I started thinking about all the little white lies that make up my
day. Here are some of my favorites:
“If you don’t get in the car now, I’m going to leave you
home alone.”
“If you don’t keep up with us while hiking a bear will eat
you.”
“A monster lives in Grandpa’s barn. If you go in the barn alone, the monster will
get you!”
“Yes, everyone in Colorado is going to bed at 8PM.”
“What am I eating? A
carrot!”
Yes, it seems I’ve turned into quite a good liar, willing to
say just about anything to keep my children alive and avoid meltdowns. Which leaves me wondering about some of the
things my parents told me as a child?
Did my beloved blankey really disappear by the drinking fountain at the
lumberyard? Or were they so sick of the
ratty scrap of fabric that they tossed it the first chance they got? Shakespeare must have surely been in the
throes of parenting when he wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first
we practice to deceive.”
