Do you lie to your kids? Little white ones or big whoppers?
We get psyched up for Santa and over the summer I couldn’t bring myself to explain why kitty made a hasty exit. He now excitedly points out our cat every time we pick berries at the berry farm.
I have swapped out yam fries for potato ones. When he suspiciously sniffed at them I told him they were coloured orange for Halloween. He wouldn’t eat baked yams so they became Christmas potatoes. Dried cranberries became Santa raisins. And the list goes on.
He is determined to find the eyes on the back of my head and regularly tests them by asking me to read the clock without turning around.
And when he and a friend painted their faces green on a playdate (yep, on my watch) with neither willing to confess who did what, the threat of rewinding the video tape had them folding faster than lawn chairs.
I thought about this last night as I tucked my sweet little kindergartener into bed after I just finished pulling the latest wool over his eyes at dinner.
He hates peas. Always has. As a baby trying the smashed peas for the first time, he made gagging sounds, screwed up his face and yelled. Was not happy with mama at all. It was a pretty honest reaction that hasn’t changed in the last 5 years. If a lone, solitary little pea found its way stuck to his steamed carrots, he would angrily point at it and demand it be removed. If one was hidden within a bite of stew or pot pie he would start heaving and spit it out. Very attractive. Since the child eats lots of veggies and eats them well we never pushed the peas. Last night as I mashed up steamed carrots and peas for his baby brother, the latter of which we ensured was nowhere near the vicinity of my older son’s plate, he asked if his brother likes peas. We told him his brother loves summer peas because they are sweet and yummy. Our older son contemplates this and says he doesn’t like peas (we know) but maybe he has never tried summer peas. You could just tell he was itching to try it but had to save kindergarten face as he has refused these quite steadfastly for a long time. I put one on his plate and pretended not to watch. He ate it. No icky face. Hmmm.. I put one more single pea on his plate and he ate that. I asked if he wanted more and he said a couple spoonfuls would be good. Then he ate spoonfuls of them while my husband and I covered our smirks. He announced he likes summer peas but not those winter ones. Good to know. He later asked me to ring our favourite turkey store to ask them to only put summer peas in their turkey pies. Right, gotcha. I think I may need to start writing these down…..
So back to my question…. do you?
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Contributor:
Sam is a busy mom of 2 boys sharing her mommy-isms.
