I have become quite the liar of late. Last week, my six-year-old daughter asked me for an apple. I told her that I didn't have any more to give her. After a few minutes of rummaging around the refrigerator, she retrieved from the bottom drawer something that might have been an apple at some point in history and held it up triumphantly.
"LIAR!" she hissed.
On Friday morning, I told my kids that I would take them to the park after preschool/kindergarten. When my daughter got off the bus at 11:30am, it was raining cats and dogs.
"Obviously we're not going to the park today," I told them.
"LIAR!" they barked in unison.
I tried (in vain) to explain to the mob the difference between willful deceit and failing to check the weather.
"This is your second lie of the day," Cortlen calculated later that afternoon when we came out of Target empty-handed. They were sold out of swimsuits in his size.
At that point, I realized that I needed to watch my words and make doubly sure that nothing I said to any of my children at any time had the air of a promise. I also needed to be better about following through with the promises that I did make.
"It's time for quiet time," I announced yesterday afternoon. "Everyone in your room for 30 minutes."
"But I don't want to go in my room right now!" wailed Camber, stomping the foot that supposedly is sprained and on the verge of falling off.
"We told you about this this morning," my husband reminded them. "You have to go. We don't want to be liars."
Any other liars out there?
***
Today's special mom is Melissa from Missouri. I was so touched by her email because, among other incredible things, Melissa is a birth mother. I can't put my feelings on the subject of adoption any better than Melissa herself:
"I am proud to admit that I am a birth mother. I had a baby boy and because I wanted better for him, I placed him for adoption. I didn't live anywhere safe to raise a baby and he deserved more. His mom and dad are awesome people who prayed for a baby for years....I gave them mine."
Melissa: You are my hero.
Melissa is going to receive a very special sterling silver infinity ring from Seababe Jewelry. Handmade in Hawaii (where I wish I was right now), this ring symbolizes a mother's eternal bond with and love for her children. How perfect and how true.
Melissa will also be getting an all natural body care gift set from Bella Luna.
Specifically, this set includes:* Verbena Lime-scented all natural sugar body scrub
* Lemongrass sage organic shower gel with goat's milk & shea butter.
* Bodhi Tree fig-scented Himalayan sea salt scrub
I don't know what half of this stuff is, but it sounds good :)
There are lots of reasons to buy from Bella Luna, but one of the biggest is that 20% of the sales from her Lemongrass shower gel go straight to the Nie Nie Recovery Fund to benefit the family of Stephanie Nielson, a young mother of four from Arizona who, along with her husband, was critically burned in a small plane crash last August. The kindess of strangers astonishes.
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31 comments
Ha! Way to turn the tables on them~love it!
For some reason my daughter has come into eating lemons just like apples...I told her we didn't have any cause I wanted to make sure I had my camera ready so I could post about it. Liar here too.
I am such a big liar to my son, we can't even say the term "One Day" as in "One day we will do.....". He says "If you say "ONE DAY" we will NEVER get to do it!!"
We now say "Some Day"
Robin @http://alabamaslackermama.blogspot.com/
My children love the punch that the word liar packs too. They indeed like to alternate between, "you lied to us," and "you broke another promise."
Me thinks our sweet, small, adorable children have figured out just exactly how a guilt trip works. *sigh* The innocent stage is so fleeting. Every time that I tell them what my plans for the day are, and some little detail, any little detail fails to meet their expectations they are quick to play the guilt card.
Ha! You give me so many good ideas :)
I finally figured out that if I say, "We'll see." Then I have an out. "Mom can I get a candy bar if I'm good in the store?" "We'll see." "Mom can I have a horse for my birthday?" "We'll see." "Mom can we go to the park today?" "We'll see."
Works good. They can't hold me to anthing!
Congratulations, Melissa! I am an adoptive mother, and without wonderful women like Melissa, I would never get the opportunity to be called a "liar"! Birth mothers are the greatest - you deserve all the world's jewels.
My 4 year old is the oldest and isolated from other children, so far she hasn't learned about liar liar pants on fire. I'm going to keep her away from other kids as long as possible to keep her loving her mommy as long as possible.
I too am a birth mother and to know that others out there have gone through it and are thriving gives me so much hope. Thank you for honoring this worthy mother.
I am also a birth mother. Did you know the day before Mother's day, (so that Saturday) is actually Birth Mother's Day? I just wanted to pass that along to anyone that might know a birth mother, because even if you don't talk about her experience much, a little card or expression of "Happy birth mother's day" is appreciated more than you know.
Thanks for honoring this birth mother.
And I'd watch out about the lying thing. I tell my kids they'll get soap in their mouth for lying and they tried to pull that one over on me with a similar rained-out park experience. LOL I do the same thing someone else said and just say, "Maybe" or "we'll see" so I have an out. LOL
Melissa you are my hero too! What wisdom and love it takes to give that to your child. Hugs and prayers for you and the other Birth Mothers out there.
Thanks to SarahAnne for letting us know about the Saturday before Mothers Day.
Our kids went through this too. Oh my gosh. To this day we will still say, "maybe" to EVERYTHING because heaven forbid a meteor strike the highway and we can't get to Krispy Creme and then we will be LIARS again!
Our youngest is five. We hope he learns the difference of willful deceit vs random acts of fate soon!
Welcome to the club!
To Melissa and all the other birth mothers around the world -
Thank you for giving all of us adoptive mothers the gift of motherhood. It saddens me to relize that my greatest joy comes from such pain and I am eternally grateful. I hope that you will someday know the joy of being a Forever Mother also. Happy Birth Mothers' Day for Saturday.
kudos to you for recognizing melissa (and all birth mothers). love that you turned the tables on the kiddos. i am trying to come up with a new way to not promise my kids stuff. when of them told me the other day "we'll see just means no>"
*sniff*
Alright, so your post was funny. (I told my kids "No more TV." Liar, liar, pants on fire...)
But then, your giveaway to Melissa in Missouri made me cry. I heart birth mamas.
Thankfully my kids haven't figured out lying yet. My response to a lot of things is "later" which satisfies my 2.5 year old. It's not technically lying since eventually we will do the thing later
My kids remember things I told them 10 YEARS ago that turned out not to be the truth. And I have to search the far reaches of my memory and try to figure out just exactly WHY it didn't turn out to be the truth, since I don't think I would have been QUITE so mean on purpose.
Or would I?
Thanks Jana for the prizes and kind words. Thanks to everyone else for the well wishes also. I did go on 10 years later to have 3 children with my husband. My first son will always be in my heart and I know he is cherished and for that I am truly grateful. Happy mothers day to all!
Oh my goodness. I've been living as a liar plenty this past week. Well that and other things :)
I just wanna congratulate Melissa...I too love birth mothers because if it weren't for them, I wouldnt have my two beautiful children. We tried for 6 years to conceive and it just wasnt going to happen. Finally a wonderful girl heard of our situation and shared hers with us. We adopted her baby boy 4 weeks later and then 15 months later she gave us a little girl. She is our hero and we love her very much...especially with mother's day right around the corner!! I wish I could think of something special to do for her besides the usual card and pictures of the kids....any suggestions??? Happy Mothers Day to all of the moms...especially the mean ones that lie! :)
I never promise anything without an out. This wasn't always the case though. It only took me about 15 years to figure it out...
:~D
Nope. Not a liar. Nope.
At least you have the words to back up the lie. I am accused of promising something I didn't. My 9 year old mentions something to me, I respond with a grunt and that turns into a promise. I am accused of being a liar for imitating a pig!
Birth mothers of the world - You are truly selfless beings who change the world one family at a time. Give yourselves a big hug and permission to love yourself and the person you loved enough to share with another.
why do you like to make me cry? (about the mom thing not the liar thing...that made me laugh!)
Love it! thanks for the laugh.
I tend to tell those little lies to my kids too. My middle child is starting to catch on to my tricks....dang they get smart too fast!
How sweet to honor Melissa! I can't imagine how sad our life would be if we didn't have a sweet birth mother choose us to be her son's parents. I think placing a child is the most special, sacred gift a woman can give--thank the Lord there are women strong enough to do it!
Love your story about the kids & happy to see birth mothers get acknowledged in a positive way. (Also happy to have found your blog :D)
As I raised my children and nephews, I was always careful to say that I would try to do something. I made very sure not to promise anything unless I knew I could keep that promise. I don't like liars and made very sure that I was not one for them. When one of my nephews told me that I promised something, I asked him what did I say about that....he answered with head down that I had said I would try to do whatever it was. That has stuck in my head all these years and that was back in the 80's.
Always try to tell the children that you will TRY then if you can't keep it for some reason or another, you didn't break your promise.
I just found your blog through BlogHer and it is hilarious! I definitely relate to this post, as I am accused of LYING or BREAKING PROMISES multiple times every day. Although, to be fair, I have actually lied about whether a certain ballet leotard was clean or in the wash when I just didn't feel like waiting for her to change into it to go to the grocery store. . . .
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