Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The Lying Game

For my first "official" post, I am going to share with you the one Almost Super Mom power that seems to be coveted most by my friends and family... (insert drum roll) The Lie Detector.

Once my oldest son Spiro entered the age where lying seemed like a good idea to him, I developed a very keen sense called the Lie Detector. It went a little something like this... I would ask if he did or didn't do something, knowing that he had or hadn't and he would not tell me the truth, and just went he thought he had me... a light bulb went off in my head. So I waited for my time to strike and the next time he was untruthful, I asked him to stick out his tongue, he looked at me with the same puzzled look that you all probably have reading this and asked me why?. I explained to him that I was looking for the lies on his tongue, that when he lies it leaves a little imprint on his tongue for me to see. Now the fact that I lied to my son in an attempt to keep him from lying is not completely lost in translation for me. I do, however, believe that there is a "grey area" of lying and this falls into that category (kind of like Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy...). I do have to admit that it wasn't shortly after this that I found Spiro propped up sweetly on his stool in the boys bathroom thoroughly inspecting his tongue. I knew immediately what he was searching for (and knew he would never find it). I explained that being able to see lies on children's tongues can only be seen by someone who is a Mommy or a Daddy and that one day when he became a Daddy he would be able to see it too. He seemed content with this explanation. Fortunately for me my kids are pretty easy to read and from that day forward when I suspected that I wasn't getting the "full story", I would ask to see the tongue. Did you hit your brother? No. Show me your tongue. Did you eat a cookie after I said not until after dinner? No. Show me your tongue. Spiro generally will break down before he shows me his tongue but if he is trying to pull a fast one over on me I can usually tell that he is sweating bullets when he sticks his tongue out for inspection and on the flip side if he offers to show me his tongue or proudly sticks it out I know he is definitely being truthful. For the most part, my kids are pretty good about being truthful and for now this has been quite effective in keeping things in check but with my oldest approaching 7 this March, I am not sure how much longer I will be able to keep this charade up. I guess I will just have to dig deep down into my Almost Super Mom powers and cross that bridge when I come to it...

Anyone else have any super powers that they have developed since becoming a parent? I am always looking to acquire new ones, so if you have any thoughts or advice, I would love to hear about them!

2 comments:

  1. My mom did something similar when I was a kid...I had forgotten about it until now! She said our tongues had black on them, but of course only moms or dads could see. :)

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  2. So far it has worked like a charm. I also use it for bad words (in our house, any words that hurt another person are considered "bad words")Thanks so much for commenting :)

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