I have learned the hard way that honesty is not the best policy with my children.
About a week ago, I took Adam out for a birthday dinner. While we were out I left gingerbread, frosting, jelly beans, and M&Ms for the kids and babysitter to enjoy. They each decorated a large gingerbread man, and the boy ate a bit of his cookie before deciding he didn’t really like it, and the girl ate about two-thirds of hers before the babysitter suggested that the cookie/candy/pie (from Adam’s birthday) might be a deadly combo and be contributing to her bouncing off the walls.
The cookies sat around for a few days. Until I got hungry. So I ate the boy’s cookie. Because I knew he wouldn’t care. And then I ate the girl’s cookie. Because I wanted more cookie. However, I discovered that the candy on the cookie wasn’t great, so I picked that off. But the candy was covering large parts of the girl’s cookie, so after I decimated it, there were still chunks of cookie left that I ended up throwing out.
And of course, three days after that, the girl asks, “Where’s my cookie?”
Me: I threw it out.
The girl: WHAT!!??
Me: It was getting gross.So I threw it out.
The girl: You threw it all out?
Me: Yeah. But it’s not like there was much left after I had eaten it.
The girl: [Tears forming in her eye, chin starting to quiver] You. Ate. My. Cookie?
The boy: Duh. What do you think happens to the sweets left here?
Me: It was going bad anyway. So I just ate it before it was too gross.
The girl: You. Ate. My. Cookie?
Me: It wasn’t just you! I ate the boy’s too!
The girl. You. Ate. My. Cookie?
Me, at this point trying to avoid the impending meltdown, and counting on distractibility of child: Who wants to drink hot chocolate in front of a TV show!
The girl, hopping off the kitchen stool: Okay! Me!
Moral of this story: Lie to your children. And make sure not to leave any crumbs. And that, my friends, is parenting at it’s finest.
