My daughter is a liar

My little girl of almost 2.5 years is a willing liar. She now can openly and consciously tell me a fib or hide materials in an attempt to conceal her involvement in anything of a mischievous nature.

This weekend I was playing with my daughter in one of the many ways we have fun. She will run from me carrying something she thinks I want and she is not supposed to have. With a squeal she trots off giggling all the way as she evades capture from the authorities heading to home base, the couch, and waiting to see if I follow her. Most of the time she is good about not getting too many things that is delicate of mine. (Mainly because I keep them under lock and key or have them up so high she “can’t reach it!” One of the many cute things she says now: “I can’t reach it!”, but I digress: more of the flagrant sinning heathen of Schaumburg.)

Saturday she was playing with my laptop, running her fingers across the keys like she was typing and looking at me with that mischievous grin of hers with a silly giggle accompanying. She turns to me often through this process and grins and waits to see what I will do and of course, I provide the usual “I’m gonna get you!” in various intervals to keep her guessing and the excitement level appropriate. The last time I say it however, she takes to a run. I grab her and pull her in close to me as I sit there and start tickling her neck and she begins giggling uncontrollably. Then she starts reaching out to her snack on the table with a whimper like, “bread, bread, I want my bread.” I let her go and what does the little wench do? Yes. She looks back at me and runs away as fast as she can! She lied to me! My little girl just openly lied and used me to get lose so she could run away! I was just astonished at the sight of seeing her that intelligent as well as using me so easily without a glimmer of shame or remorse for doing so.

And the weekend got worse. I was upstairs taking a shower and she, my daughter was downstairs with her mother. She had grabbed a dirty rag from the laundry and was playing with it and chewing on it. Her mother told her to put it away and not to do that, it was nasty. She ignored the mother figure and kept at her activity.

I began walking to the stairs and stopped on the landing. Her mother pointed out that I was on my way down and she had better put the rag back and stop. As I watched her from above, I saw her sitting next to my chair chewing on this rag and ignoring her mother. She looked up, saw me and quickly went into cover up mode as I walked down the stairs. She threw the rag by the chair and began feebly trying to cover it up with a dog leash. Once she had applied what she thought was ample coverage from the leash, she got up and ran toward me speaking tenderly and cutely as the little girl we all know she is saying “Hi daddy!” As if to say, “Why hello Father. I didn’t know you were here. When did you arrive? You didn’t happen to see my former activity did you? If so it wasn’t me. And if it was, I was probably nudged into doing whatever it was you know?”

My daughter the liar.