Week 216: Lies, Easter, and Snakes

It’s noteworthy this week that Sam has reached an important developmental milestone on the road towards maturity: learning to lie. She has, however, not quite reached the milestone marked “learning to lie convincingly.” The other night when Geralyn was out, Sam decided to throw a series of interconnected fits when I told her to pick up her toys right before bath time. I kept dishing out the time outs, but after about 45 minutes she had picked up a total of four toys, accompanied by her self-generated soundtrack of howling, sputtering, and crying. Finally, I told her that fine, if she wasn’t going to clean up I wasn’t going to read her any books at bed time. This caused a new, protracted outburst that lasted while she slowly climbed the stairs, soaked in the tub, and –amazingly– brushed her teeth.

I briefed Geralyn on the evening’s shenanigans when she got home. The next morning, over breakfast and after I had left for work, she asked Sam how her night had been.

“Fine,” Sam said, more than a little petulantly.

“Did you pick up your toys?”

“Yes,” Sam replied, stabbing at her banana slices and toaster waffle. “I picked up ALL my toys.”

“That’s, uh, good. But not what I heard. What books did Daddy read you?”

“He didn’t read me any books.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t want him to.”

So you can see that there’s a bit of entrapment that probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but fortunately we get to be the judge, jury, and both lawyers in our own house. Now, if Sam would only realize that.

Things were a lot more pleasant over the weekend, though. Because our actual Easter weekend is going to be kind of busy, we went to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Unfortunately it was in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE, and it took us like an hour to drive there. On the plus side, both the kids had a blast. There were baby ducks, bunnies, and the much anticipated egg hunt.

Here’s the thing about public egg hunts, though: they’re pretty lame. The place had big plots of land marked off according to what age group would be allowed, lest some brute of a five year old steamroll kids who can barely waddle form one egg to the other. And the eggs, by the way, are not particularly well concealed. The verb “hunt” in this case seems to have been redefined to mean “Walk two feet, squat, and gather 12 of the hundreds of eggs within even the small reach of a toddler.” The kids hunted them much in the same way that our primitive ancestors hunted berry bushes in an open field. I mean, the little plots of land were literally covered in plastic eggs and since they organizers imposed a catch limit of 12, it took Sam about as many seconds to complete her task. We’ll have a much better time with our egg hunt at home, where if I have anything to say about it she’ll NEVER find some of them.

Sam was also able to get her face painted at the event, but when asked if she wanted an egg, a chick, or bunny whiskers, Sam said, with great certainty, that she wanted a totally rad snake tatoo on her cheek. I suggested painting a loop of barbed wire around her bicep, but she insisted on the snake. The perplexed face painter, was, however, able to convince her to make it a pink one.

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5 thoughts on “Week 216: Lies, Easter, and Snakes

  1. Heh. I love that Sam turned it around so that SHE was the one who didn’t want any books read. Our daughter has reached this milestone too, and also has started attempting sneakiness. She needs work in that area, though. Here is a sample:
    Me: Annalie, please throw that candy wrapper in the trash can.
    A: Okay! [smlies brightly, but doesn’t move towards the trash. slides her eyes toward the couch then looks back at me.]
    Me: Annalie, don’t put the trash behind the couch.
    A: Mommy…don’t look over here for a minute, okay?

  2. Ha, yeah we get that, too. I freaked Sam out the other night because I told her not to do something, then moved so that I was out of her direct sight but I could still see her reflection in a mirror. When she started to do the thing again, I shouted “Sam, stop it!” from the other room and the look on her face was great. She probably really does think I’m omniscient, which is just fine by me.

  3. Your pictures are amazing! Are they on Flickr? I really liked your daughter Sam’s one with the duck. 🙂

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