I told my wife, before we had the little Torqueling, that what I looked forward to most about having kids was lying to them. Not maliciously, you understand; just making up crazy stuff to see if they believe you. And I know I’m not alone in this; there are books on the subject. Some of the lies I’ve told my kid:
[ol]
[li]She was fascinated with motorcycles when she was little. When she asked where they were going, I told her, “To the motorcycle park, to play with the other motorcycles.” She wanted to go see the park, but I told her we couldn’t go, because we don’t have a motorcycle.[/li]
[li]Had to get rid of the pacifier somehow. So, when she turned two, we tossed 'em all and told her that they broke. She’s two years old, we said, and so were her pacifiers, and so they all broke. I thought we’d never break that habit, but she didn’t even question it.[/li]
[li]The best one so far is the neighborhood ice cream truck. It rumbles around playing “Turkey In The Straw” all the time. I’d be bankrupt if I didn’t think of something. So, the first time it rolled around, she heard it and asked, “What’s that?” I replied, “The asparagus truck. It drives around delivering asparagus to people.”[/li][/ol]
So what are some of the best, most creative, and funniest lies you’ve ever told your kids?
My daughter was about 5 when she happened to have some mosquito bites, and was speculating what they were and how she got them. She flatly refused to believe us when we told her they were mosquito bites, so we told her they must be microtiger bites then. We still talk about microtigers and warn her that the microtigers are going to get her, but it’s just a joke now.
We also tend to tell bald-faced, self serving lies such as, “Yes, everyone else is going to bed now too,” and cover ourselves ethically by adding, “as far as you know.” The 7yo has just started to catch onto this.
I assume you all have already told your kids about “Hill Cows” right? They are the cows that graze on the sides of hills, so therefore have shorter legs on the uphill side of their body. I even explained it in term of evolutionary change. They were skeptical, so I found an internet site supporting my position. Guess I taught them two lessons…Don’t believe Dad or the Internet.
One of my favorites is when the family pet had to be euthanized, I told my children that ‘Babar’ had to go to the circus to perform. Furthermore, unfortunately he will be traveling with the circus for a very long time. Seemed to work for every pet that passed along, hamsters, birds, cats, whatever. Occasionally they would ask to go to the circus when it came to town but I don’t think they ever remembered to actually look for their beloved pet. Many years later, as a teenager, our daughter had just realized this was an outright lie-
For a while, I’ve told my grandchildren we have a family of bears living under the porch. I’m not sure why I created this story but they are 8 now and like to tease me about it.
I’ve told my grandchildren so many lies that now, when I tell them the truth, they have to ask their mom if I’m fibbing or not. They know dad will go along with whatever I’ve told them. bad grandpa.
I’ll do that sometimes, too, usually to skip over things that’ll lead to too much explanation. For example, last night we were reading One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and got to the part about Mr. Gump and his seven-hump Wump.
“Daddy, can I ride on that Wump?”
“If we ever meet Mr. Gump, we’ll ask him.” Which is safe, because the odds of meeting Mr. Gump are remote at best.
Same thing with the Yink, who likes to wink and drink pink ink. “Daddy, can we get a Yink?” “If we ever see one for sale, we’ll buy it.”
wear a pull-up downstairs (he was waking up dry and going downstairs to poop in his pull-up), and
for stores to sell binkies to people who might give them to children ages 3 and up.
Oh, oh! I know. He had seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabhan and got a little freaked out about werewolves. He was not even in kindergarten yet. So anyway, I told him I would do a magic spell on his room to protect him. I didn’t have any sage or anything so I used a whole nutmeg and chanted “protect our home” a number of times and then left the nutmeg there, telling him not to eat it. It stayed there for years and, periodically, he would ask me if it really worked against werewolves and other evils. It wasn’t till he told me he knew I was lying that I admitted it.
Whenever they wanted to do something dangerous, I would tell them that that was how we’d lost one or other of their older (completely fictitious) siblings.
“Dad, why don’t you drag me behind the car on my skateboard?”
“That’s what happened to Calliope*, I dragged her down the street and she got hit by the Asparagus truck”.
“Dad, can I jump off the roof using a bedsheet as a parachute? I’ve got a bike helmet on”
“That’s how we lost Terpsichore, she drifted off into the sky.”
“Dad, can I cut the top off the champagne with a saber?”
“Okay, wear eye protection”**
This also allows me to use all the names that we didn’t use when we named the Attackkids.
**See, I’m not a total poop. Attacklass was very stoked when she did this.
She was brought up with a Fisher Price Pug brown bear. It had to go everywhere. We could see time was taking a toll on the bear. They had stopped making this model. I searched and luckily found a duplicate in a resale shop by pure accident. I have not seen another since. I made various easy repairs at first. Then I invented the Brown Bear Machine. It had flashing lights, timer, noise and a fan. It was battery operated. The machine itself was kept in a cupboard above the refrigerator. We would put Brown Bear in it and set the timer and go play. When the timer went off we would return and I would pull the completely refurbished bear from the machine. Of course, I had to duplicate every repair on which ever was the spare bear so they always looked identical. As she aged and became more inquisitive, I parted out the machine. I did one more major repair/exchange on a planned basis while she was away for a weekend. When she gets married, I plan on bringing out the leftover pieces of the really worn bear at the reception-or maybe not.
Why did you eat that blue popsicle? Now you have Blue Tongue Disease! 30 seconds later, kid is in the bathroom with a mouthful of soap…
The magic potion to keep away wolves is still lodged in the window frame. 24 years later.
Kid had a wart on his finger. I was cleaning out some stuff and came across “How to Hypnotize Yourself and Others”. I thumbed through it prior to discarding it and came across a story which seemed impossible. So I tried it out on my kid.
“Here, take this pin and stick the wart with it. Now, hide it so that only you know where it is and tell no one. The wart will be gone in 5 days.”
It was. I still can’t fathom that one. I never did find that pin.
The funny thing about the asparagus truck is that she knows what an ice cream truck is, because she’s seen them in cartoons like Oswald and Dora. And she’s even said that she wishes we had an ice cream truck in our neighborhood instead of the asparagus truck. That actually makes me feel kinda bad about it, but I still snicker evilly.
Another story is the Sandman. At bedtime, the Sandman starts making his rounds, making sure all the little kids are asleep. She’s afraid of the Sandman, for no reason I can tell; we’ve never said or even implied that he’s mean or does anything bad to you if he catches you out of bed. Still, if she’s dragging her feet at bedtime, all it takes is a glance out the window: (gasp!) “The Sandman is right next door! We’d better hurry and get to bed!” (sound of little feet running to the bedroom)
Dad works nights. Apparently once I told one of my daughters (5-ish at the time) that the reason she and her sisters love swimming so much is because they’re mermaids. Dad turns into a fish at night and I have to put him in his bowl till sunup; that’s why they don’t see him at night.
I do not remember telling them this and have no idea why I did. I suspect we were heavily into “The Little Mermaid” at the time. But apparently their reaction was “Cool! We’re mermaids! Wait till the other kids find out.”
Reading the long version of The Lion King book to them, I started getting annoyed with the constant questions and comments and interruptions. By the end I was totally fed up. We get to the last page with Simba’s baby. “What’s the baby’s name?” they whine. “Joe” I snapped and shut the book.
They remembered Simba’s baby is “Joe” for years. Then the sequel comes out. Simba’s baby is a girl and her name is not Joe. I overhear them speculating about this. “Why did Mom tell us her name was Joe? Did Mom lie to us? No, Mom wouldn’t lie to us…”
I told my daughter that I was once a leprechaun, but then a witch turned me into a human. She came home from daycare the next day and said, “I hope what he told me is true, because I told everybody about it.”
I told my children that it’s not permitted to drive in West University Place (a doctor/lawyer/Indian chief neighborhood in Houston) unless you’ve shaved. Otherwise, you’ll be fined or put in jail. I don’t quite think they really fell for that one, though.
A friend of my sister uses a variation of this story. She told her kids it was “The Music Truck” and it just drove through the neighborhood playing music.
