Little Liar

We all do it now and then, don’t we? But to be honest, our oldest two are mostly model children. The occasional prompt for a please or a thank you, but mostly very polite children. Out of the little ones, Thor in particular delivers a very cheery and sincere thank you, if you hold on to whatever it is he wants to thank you for! I do the same with the hounds when I give them a treat. They are very food focused and at the whiff of a treat they get quite excited and either sit in front of me or in Remus’s case, he starts to spin. He will spin and spin and spin and finally when the treat is in my outstretched hand I loudly say ‘Gentle’. Gracie nibbles the treat with tender care, but Remus is a bit more snappy. I hold onto his treat and repeat ”Gentle’, he then complies. With Thor, Aaliyah and Caleb, the same can be said. With the sweets that were consumed yesterday, I have to say that I didn’t once have to ask for ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. If only that were the case with the more mundane actions, like being given a drink or their dinner.

Anyhow, who was todays little liar! I am trying to cut down on my smoking as a prelude to giving up in the New Year. My e-cigarettes has a small battery charger that is generally plugged into a socket above the dish washer. Today whilst emptying the said dishwasher, i looked down to the filter as there were a couple of chickpeas sitting there. A remnant of last nights meal. Behind the filer I noticed a black wire and realised that my e-cigarette charger had been placed into the dishwasher at some earlier point. Knowing that this incident would have been one of the little ones, I called them all into the kitchen. ‘Well’ I asked ‘who put the charger into the dishwasher’? Caleb, the quietest of the three (mostly), pipes up ‘it was Thor’. ‘Thor’ I ask ‘was it you’? Thor tells me it was Aaliyah. Aaliyah then tells me it was Caleb. Rather than having one little liar, we clearly had two, if not three little liars. I had all three stood around the open door of the dishwasher. ‘Spend a minute and then tell me the truth’? You know, children are rubbish at keeping secrets, so I knew the truth would raise its head. I went back after a minute and both Thor and Aaliyah point accusingly at Caleb. He was looking down, consumed with whatever emotion it is that three year olds have, was it guilt, anger at being found out, or indeed anger at the other two for ratting him out. I picked him up and placed him under my left arm (gently of course) and marched him up the two flights of stairs to bed. Not a murmur from him, which is unusual as all of the little ones mostly scream and shout when things are that bad, being so naughty that they are banished to their bedroom. Half an hour later I looked up to see if he was okay – fast asleep. I decided to let him sleep until lunchtime. Thor makes me smile as on the odd occasion when he has been naughty. He will look me straight in the eye and say ‘Naughty Dadda, Naughty Dadda’. And a last thought on Aaliyah’s moments of extreme naughtiness. You see we have a local school for naughty girls! It is simply called ‘The School for Naughty Girls’, it’s run by ‘Mrs Snodgrass’. A no nonsense woman in her late fifties, I imagine she is dressed in a Green tweed, two piece suit, horn rimmed glasses, a bit like she has just stepped out from the year 1954… since the introduction of ‘Mrs Snodgrass’ Aaliyah’s behaviour has improved significantly. Let’s just say that the threat of going to Naughty School is our plan B with Aaliyah. We all need a plan B don’t we?