To tell the truth?

Have you ever lied to your kids?

I don't mean great big huge lies, just the little ones that will sometimes help you from completely losing your sanity. Lies that can sometimes just make your life a little bit easier, or even just more entertaining.

Lies like...........

If you're nice to your brother, he'll stop hitting you.

I have no idea what happened to your Halloween candy.

Stop that or I will sell you to the gypsies.

I have no idea what happened to your Easter candy.

Keep doing that, and I will sell you on eBay.

I have no idea what happened to your chocolate Santa.

If you pick your nose, you could break your finger.

If you don't shape up, your father and I will dress up in funny costumes and come to school and do a funny dance for your class.

Santa called and said to stop fighting, or he's coming back to take away your toys.

The computer can smell. It knows if you haven't taken a bath, and it won't turn on.

The motion sensor on our security alarm system is also programmed to detect whether or not you are doing your homework, and if you aren't, it shoots a laser beam at your head.

I have absolutely no idea where all of your Happy Meal toys went.

Zuchinni tastes like chocolate.


When Aaron was three, he was fascinated with toilets. He is a very inquisitive child, and loved to see how they worked. Being the "hands on" type of learner, he tried many experiments with what you could do with the toilet, more specifically he really enjoyed playing the game "Will it flush?"

Aaron discovered that there were three different categories of items that could be flushed.

Category #1. Things that WILL flush.
These include;

Polly pocket shoes and clothes
Toothpaste lids
Barrettes
Small candies (Smarties, m&ms ect.)
Small crayons
Grapes

Eventually, he grew tired of all the small stuff, and moved on to bigger and better things (literally)

He discovered category #2. Things that WON'T flush down the toilet,
such as;

A new roll of toilet paper
Barbies*
Inflated balloons
Small basketball
A Banana*

*I think that if these had been angled differently, they very well might have flushed, but as it turned out, we were just darn lucky that they didn't.

Then there was the third category of items. His favorite.

Category #3. Things that flush partially, but not quite all the way, getting stuck just far enough down that some ultra brave adult wearing rubber gloves can't reach it, but not far enough down that it doesn't create a huge clog resulting in a flooded bathroom every time the toilet is flushed.

These items included;

Toothbrushes
Combs
Pencils
The lid from the liquid soap dispenser, with the pump still attached.

These were the items that were found in the toilet the time we spent a fortune to have the plumber remove both of our toilets to fix the clogs. (One toilet had 3 soap dispenser lids stuck inside.)

Not too long after this incident, I bought the kids new toothbrushes. After they opened the packages, I noticed that there were only two packages sitting on the counter for me to throw away. Aaron's was the one missing.
So I asked him "Aaron, where did you put the package that your toothbrush came in?"
Aaron replied "I frew it away."
This was one of those hard plastic packages that was just large enough to hold the toothbrush. I looked in the garbage can, and couldn't see the package.

I had a bad feeling.

"Aaron, where did you throw it away?"
He said "I fwushed it."

Terrrrrific.

The next few days, the toilet began to have problems. We really didn't want to call the plumber again. We knew all too well what he would charge us to fix the problem, and also, I was afraid he would tease us.

One morning, my DH had had enough. This was our upstairs bathroom, the one by all the bedrooms, and it was quite a pain to have to go downstairs any time you had the need to use the facilities.
DH put on a rubber glove, and reached inside to see if he could find it. He grabbed the toothbrush wrapper, and removed it from the toilet.

We rejoiced!

That afternoon, on my way to pick up Aaron from preschool, I had, what I then thought, was a sneaky idea that might keep him from flushing random objects. I was going to give him a different story of how the toilet got fixed.
When Aaron got in the car, I told him "The plumber came by today and fixed the toilet. We had to give him all of our money to get it fixed, and so now we don't have any money left to buy you any candy or other treats."

I was hoping that if I could make the connection in his brain about "flushing non flushable objects=no treats" that he might actually think twice before doing that again.

Aaron was silent until a few minutes later when he asked "What did he look like?"
Me: "What did who look like?"
Aaron: "The pwummer!"
Me: "Well...........he was not very tall.............he had a mustache............"
Aaron: "Oh, like uncle J?"
Me: "Um...........yeah, like uncle J.''
Aaron: "What was he wearing?''
Me: "Some sort of blue uniform. I think. Maybe."
Aaron: "What was his name?"
Me: "Ummmmmm.............Bob?"
Aaron: "What color was his truck?"
Me: "Blue, I'm pretty sure it was blue."

That seemed to satisfy him, and he was quiet for the rest of the ride.
I had all but forgotten about the conversation by the time we got home, and Aaron jumped out of the car and quickly ran upstairs.
Several minutes passed, when Aaron walked down the stairs, carefully looking at each one.
He then came up to me and very indignantly said "I don't see his footprints."
Me: "Who's footprints?"
Aaron: "The pwummers!"
Me: "Oh........... I vacuumed after he left."

Aaron then went and looked at the stairs again and asked "Then why don't I see any vacuum tracks?"

Sometimes, you just can't win.

I am happy to report, that nearly five years later, Aaron has pretty much (as far as I can tell) stopped flushing things down the toilet for fun.
The ironic part is, that now, we can't seem to get him to flush it at all.
But that's a story for another time.