Consequence of Lying
Dec 28th, 2008 Posted in Being a Mom | one comment »Saint Patrick may be the patron saint of Ireland, and March 17th may be the day for celebrating his miracles, but for our family that holiday will always remind us of the funny thing that happened on March 18th!
Our second child, Mark, was born on Saint Patrick’s Day. Every year I tried to come up with some special way to celebrate his birthday. Sometimes it was green icing on sugar cookies, other birthdays were toasted with green punch. His 6th birthday fell on a school day, however, so I settled for a store-bought cake, festooned with bright green icing, which we shared with his friends at daycare.
On March 18th, Mark had a physical exam scheduled, so I went to his school to pick him up for his appointment. I decided to take him home first, so we could quickly grab a bite to eat.
On the way home, my little guy (who couldn’t say his “R’s”) said, “Mommy, I left my backpack at dayKO (daycare) today, so my teachO let me walk to dayKO to get it. Then Miss Patty at dayKO let me walk with it back to school!”
I said, “Honey, that’s can’t be true! Those teachers would never let you walk all by yourself for a mile.”
“Oh no Mommy, I’m telling you the twuth! It weally happened!” Mark said sweetly, to which I replied, “Okay Mark, I’m going to call your teacher at school and ask her if this really happened.” All of a sudden, Mark got a sickly look on his face, and got really quiet. He whispered, “Don’t call my teachO Mommy – I WAS lying.”
The rest of the way home and halfway through lunch I think I said everything that’s ever been said about the evils of lying. Mark just listened, nodding his head, and promising he would NEVER lie again. As we finished lunch, I said, “Okay honey, go potty and we’ll head for your appointment.”
About five minutes later, I heard Mark yelling from the bathroom, “Mommy, come quick! Mommy, come quick!” Fearing that he had hurt himself in some way, I ran to the bathroom with my heart pounding out of my chest.
Mark was standing by the toilet with his pants down, pointing into the bowl.
“Look at my poop Mommy! Look at my poop! IT’S GWEEN!” Sure enough, his deposit was bright green, which made me think of the bright green frosting on the cake he’d eaten the day before.
I said, “Mark, you know why your poop is GREEN don’t you?
With big, remorse-filled blue eyes, he looked up at me, nodded his head slowly, and said, “Yes, Mommy, my poop is gween because I LIED!”
