Liar liar pants on... fire. Sort of.

The few but heartfelt comments on my last post have inspired me to keep on blogging. I was never going to stop all together; I was just thinking of turning off comments or opening the blog up only to select people. I may do the first; and my paranoid self may do the last, too- but not today. I have been working on some changes to the blog anyway; but my computer illiteracy is causing me a great deal of frustration. Greg keeps telling me he has “people” who can help, but so far their existence seems as vague and unreal as their identity. We shall see; change will come. Sometimes it comes too fast, actually; especially when it pertains to my girls. Lately I have found myself watching and listening to Juliette and wondering where this little person came from. She is beginning to look like a kid; not a toddler or a baby anymore. Taller (not tall, but taller), skinny; her proportions are evening out so that her head isn’t quite so big relative to the rest of her. Her arms reach above her head- unlike Cosette, whose hands barely come over her head. She has opinions on everything, she has definite views on how things should be done, and she has quite a large imagination. She talks the most at night, when we are cuddling together just before bed. I love our little night time chats, but on the other hand, they occur at the end of the day when I am tired and my patience is wearing thin and I know that it is just another ploy to delay bedtime just a little longer. Sometimes she talks herself out after only a few minutes. The other night, for example, she observed to me that her nose is just like an M. An M for mommy. Because it goes up, and down, and up again, and down, just like an M. And there are two holes in her nose. Sometimes she sticks a tissue up there. At least, she claims to have done so, although I’ve never seen her willingly and voluntarily use a tissue. Why use a tissue when your finger will do just as well?

Which brings up another topic… the topic of lying. I’ve been trying to get her to understand the concept, and to understand that lying is bad. Although, I probably should have picked a better time for initiating this lesson. No, it wasn’t when she claimed to use a tissue to dig out the treasures in her nostrils; that was a stretch of the imagination, to claim that she used a tissue, but not really a lie. She has used tissues. Mostly, she likes to eat them. Doesn’t matter if they have snot in them or not. Hey, more fiber with the protein, that way, right? No, we commenced our lesson on “Lying and Why it is Bad” when we were struggling over an old familiar issue… pooping in her pants.

After dinner one evening- a particularly painful dinner when neither of the girls wanted to sit at the table, they refused to eat anything on the plate, but they wouldn’t get down and play because they both wanted to be on my lap (it’s a wonder I havn’t lost more weight what with the inability to sit down for dinner for longer then five minutes). Greg was no where around- he probably had gone back up to play his stupid computer game. Juliette had found a distraction at the art table; Cosette was still pestering me at the dinner table. It is a universal fact that the food on Mommy’s plate tastes much better then anyone else’s- except for the vegetables, which never taste good. Anyway, Juliette started to get that intense look of inner focus and- well- sort of pinch her butt.
Me: “Juliette, are you going poopy?”
J: looks up at me. “No.”
OK, my mistake. I take another bite of dinner then put Cosette down, urging her to go play with her sister.
J: Whines. “But mommy, I can’t play. I have poopy!”

I drop my fork to the plate, look squarely at my beautiful daughter’s cranky face, and respond: “Juliette, didn’t I just ask you if you were going poopy, and you said no?”
Juliette is sensing that she is on dangerous ground here. “No?”
Now I am really exasperated. “Juliette, do you have poopy in your pants?”
J: “No.”
She has poopy, she doesn’t have poopy. She has to go poopy, she has gone poopy. The phrasing is key. ‘I have’ rather then ‘I am going’ or ‘I have to’ or a panicked ‘it’s coming out!’ means that she has already pooped and she has the poop in her pants. So I get up to investigate. “Juliette, if I see poopy in your pants, that means you are lying to me. Do you know what lying is?” She shrugs. “Lying is when you don’t tell the truth.” OK, that may not be the best explanation. “Lying is when you say that you don’t have poopy in your pants, even though you do have poopy in your pants. So I will ask you again, and I don’t want you to lie. Do you have poopy in your pants?”
J: getting upset, “no!”
Me: “Juliette, I am not mad about the poopy, but I am mad about the lying. If you are lying to me you are going to go for a five minute time out. Am I going to look in your pants and see poopy?”
J: clearly believes in the “deny, deny, deny” philosophy, but is getting unsure in the face of my impending wrath. “no?”
Me: in that low, stern tone, “Ju-li-ette….” I reach towards her. She tries to run away, only, because of the poopy in her pants she doesn’t want to walk. She finally gives in, holds her arms up to me and cries:
J: “Mommy, change me!”

Now, you will please note, dear reader, that she never actually admitted to having poopy in her pants. I told you she was clever.

I changed her, I put her in time out, and then I tried to clarify so she wouldn’t develop (more of a) complex about pooping on the potty. After she was calm, I asked if she knew why I was mad. She nodder her head yes, but remained silent, so I explained that I was angry about the lying, but I was not mad about the pooping in the pants because that was just an accident. And that, my friends, was a big fat LIE. I was mad about the poopy, too. Someone should put mommy in time out. Please?

P.S. If you note the time, you will see that I did post this from work. But it will not become- um, continue to be- a habit.