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Feb
28
The other day we were driving home from somewhere and Riley was rooting around in the cupholder attached to his booster seat, grousing because he couldn’t find a Lego he’d dropped in there. For no particular reason I said well, maybe the tiny alligator that lives in the cupholders accidentally ate it.
No way, Mom, he said. Alligators are too big to live in cupholders.
Not this one, I told him. This alligator is super tiny, because it lives on the crumbs that fall in there.
It’s too tiny to bite people? he asked.
Oh yeah, I said. Besides, this alligator’s really nice. It doesn’t want to bite people. It just wants to eat the crumbs from your crackers and cookies and things.
Well why don’t I ever see it? he asked.
Because it’s scared of people. I mean, to the alligator you’re like a huge giant. The alligator doesn’t know you’re actually a friendly boy.
Riley asked all sorts of questions about the alligator, and later he wanted to make a little bed for the alligator so it wouldn’t get too cold at night. He made a pillow out of an old sock, tucked in a washcloth for the blanket, and dropped a piece of waffle on top. There, he said with satisfaction.
The next day when we got back in the car, he shouted with surprise at the note waiting for him in his cupholder.
This is from the ALLIGATOR, he breathed. Its name is Al . . Allie.
He went on: I can’t believe it! I can’t believe the alligator left me a note! I’m so happy the alligator likes me, Mom.
So, you tell me: was that wrong?
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100 Responses to “On lying”
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No. That’s adorable.
No way. That’s too sweet for words.
No. That was wonderful and someone draws awesome alligators.
I think it’s adorable. I would say less harmful than the Santa Clause lie, which is probably not harmful at all. It’s a pretend game, and I think it’s good to give children practice at believing impossible things. If they’re lucky, they’ll retain just a little bit of that ability when they’re old enough to know better.
Not. At. All. That is all kinds of awesome. And one day he’ll realize there was no alligator and he will not be scarred – he will say, “Man, my mom is fucking cool.”
Also… Are you telling us Riley is READING now?
I don’t think it’s any more wrong than telling kids about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. My dad told me all kinds of made up stuff when I was a kid. It wasn’t the pretend stuff that scarred me. Only reality could do that.
No worse than Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny. If the magic is believed, it’s real. They’ll have the rest of their lives to deal with “real”.
No. He will love memories like this when he gets older. (After the eye-rolling stage of “Come ON, Mom, that’s not TRUE.”)
When I was about Riley’s age, I used to have a recurring nightmare about an alligator that lived in our attic and came downstairs at night to terrorize me. After waking up many mornings to find me sleeping on her bedroom floor because I was too scared to stay in my own bed, my mom invented a story out of desperation. “I went up in the attic and talked with the alligator’s mother,” she told me. “She said she’s very sorry he’s been scaring you; he only wanted to play. She’ll make sure that he doesn’t come downstairs anymore.”
I never had another nightmare about the alligators in the attic. If that kind of “lying” is wrong, I don’t want to know what’s right.
Also — goddamn, you are a good alligator portraitist!
Noooo sooo awesome! I sent my daughter a teeny tiny message from the tooth fairy. She is convinced she is real now. I even sprinkled it with pixie dust. And she’s 8. I’m drawing out this childhood of faith in the fantastical for as long as possible!!!
Also…that drawing rocks.
Who cares, it’s about the damned cutest things ever, and it’s not going to be too much longer that you’ll be able to pull it off. Enjoy it now – soon you’ll be putting notes in big boy lunches for 2nd grade (like I did last week) that he’ll LOVE (but also hide from his friends.)
nope. My daughter loved fairies a few years ago. I invented a fairy for her to write to. Her name is Carrissa and she is a rainbow fairy. So now every time my almost 10 year old daughter sees a rainbow she says “oh, Carrissa was here!” She used to write long notes to her fairy and the fairy would write notes back and leave little trinkets. I think it helps children to have an imagination about things they can’t see.
Hell to the no! Stories like this are what make childhood glorious…for him and for you!
Oh my God, are you KIDDING?! NO! That’s AWESOME and surely a memory he will keep for the rest of his life.
P.S. You’re aces at drawing alligators.
Absolutely not! I wish I was that creative. That’s awesome!! :0) And he loves it and that’s all that matters lol!
No, that is AWESOME is what that is. Think of the memories he’ll have when he’s older – “Hey Mom, remember when you told me there was a tiny alligator living in the cup holder? Now my kids think we have one…” You’ve started a tradition!
There was a great This American Life episode about something similar (in this case, the daughter read the Borrowers books and started leaving notes for the Borrowers, to which her dad eventually started responding).
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/106/fathers-day-98 [it's Act 4].
But I think there’s nothing bad about it at all. I am all for childhood wonder and amazement.
Oh no Linda, it was adorable!!! You are the best mom.
I think it is fantastic! I wish I could come up with stuff like that on the fly. That’s my husband’s job…he gets to be the Fun Parent.
Not at all!! That is so awesome.
Children WANT to believe in magical things, and I really think we should let them. My daughters whole-heartedly believe in fairies and spend so much time (WHEN IT’S WARMER) making fairy houses and telling themselves stories about the fairies that visit them. Whenever little pieces of evidence presents itself that fairies might not exist, they quickly make up a REASON for that evidence, always supporting their belief in fairies.
Soon enough, their brains will mature to the point where they will realize that Santa can’t really make it around the world in one night and that the WIND not the fairies moved the leaves in their fairy houses. Until then, I’m leaving them to their magical world. And I’ll be sad when they leave it behind.
(Also, a psychologist friend pointed out that children’s brains are not adversely affected by belief in magic. She said that there’s been no respectable studies that show that kids have trust or any other issues from being told about Santa etc. And when children find out the truth- especially if they come to the realization themselves at their own time- they are not angry or distrusting of adults, even in the short-term.)
There is such a small time that kids can believe in that stuff, I embrace it.
My mom had a fun little tradition that she started for my younger sisters. The leprechauns came to our house every St. Patrick Day. They left gold chocolate coins and gold Hershey’s kisses and they cleaned up their room (she got the idea from someone where the leprechauns messed up the room, but she didn’t want to mess it up when it really needed cleaning). They loved that and it was really more magic then Santa for them.
That was the cutest thing EVER! You’ve made my day, no kidding.
I don’t know about wrong, but it is damn adorable! I tell my kids little harmless lies like that all the time. It’s half the fun of parenting, shoot, Nolan thinks I can remove my thumb from my hand and that I have eyes in the back of my head. (well hidden under my hair.)
Heck no. The very best families have all kinds of invisible friends. My family, for example has (among many other ‘magical’ critters that have inhabited our home over the decades) a very shy troll that lives in the back of the coat closet (we can’t close the door all the way, because he’s afraid of the dark). Make believe and magic are awesome for both kids AND adults (all of us ‘kids’ are now in our 40’s and we still happily adhere to the story of the shy closet troll).
When I was about 5 my dad went to a craft store and bought a large assortment of pearl beads, gold coins, and jewels. He then took a chocolate box, that was made of aluminum and looked like a chest, filled it, and buried it in the property behind our church.
He wrote a map, burned the edges, and hid it in our attic. Then he helped me to “discover” the map and find the buried treasure. A little part of me knew it was fake, since I had owned the chocolate box before hand. But another part of me thought it had really been buried by pirates. It’s still the most creative thing, and most amazing memory :D
absolutely NOT wrong. soon enough he’ll be too old to “believe” in that stuff anymore. childhood magical thinking at this age is just that…magical! go with it. i think its AWESOME!
No way! That is such an awesome/sweet/adorable thing to do. You’re making him happier now, and engaging his imagination for the long run.
That’s not lying, that’s story-telling. And it is wonderful. You’ve just made a memory that will stay with Riley his whole life.
it’s not wrong, it’s being a GREAT mother!
Oh god, that’s not wrong. That makes me cry, it’s so adorable.
This is what fosters creativity for life!
Kids have awesome imaginations and I think by doing what you did just helped Riley’s creativity. Such a cute idea, and now I bet car rides are going to provide wonderful conversation.
No – that was not wrong! That was creating a memory for your son. He will remember Allie forever!
The chipmunk in our yard sends my 3 year old notes all summer long, and he “writes” back.
Very cute… and children’s book idea? :)
The tooth fairy started receiving so many letters from our kids, wondering A)why s/he had not visited the night before, B)what happens when the parent loses the tooth c)what do you look like, etc. Soon their father was writing and drawing pics for them. I still have these in my jewelry box, 20 years later.
As for my story to our 3-year old son that he should not get out of bed at night because his bed was surrounded by crocs…
years later he used that story in a high school talent show. And I had forgotten all about it.
Coolest fucking mom EVER!
That note is the cutest thing EVER. I love it.
heck no! that was GREAT. when i was little, the house we lived in had a laundry chute, and my mom told me “Mr. Nobody” lived there. i bought it hook, line, and sinker, and used to draw him pictures to hang in his “house,” you name it. he would write me thank you notes on a chalkboard we had in our kitchen. i’m now 30 and a couple of decades removed from the “Mr. Nobody” days, but it’s become a sweet family story. i’d do the same for my kids.
The first thing I thought of reading this is what an awesome memory this will be for him. I was thinking of you guys all laughing in 20 or 30 years, sitting around a dinner table telling the story of Allie the Alligator.
I think it’s awesome.
Uh, and if it helps, when I was a kid in the 80s at about Riley’s age, Halley’s Comet was coming back around (I guess?). We’d be eating dinner (INSIDE of our HOUSE, not, you know, outside or in the space shuttle) and my Dad would yell “Cait, look! It’s Haley’s Comet!”. While pointing at, you know, the wall, or something. I looked every damn time, he’d steal something off my plate, and everyone would have a big ole laugh at my expense.
Now it’s a funny memory, and totally has my Dad written all over it.
Hells no. My niece still talks to me about Mr Moth, the talking moth (who talked in my voice) we found one day. She’s nearly 8. :)
You are teaching him how to use an imagination, bravo!
I loved this post. The “Switch Witch” comes to our house Halloween night. The more candy my daughter leaves out (and totally her choice) the better the toy the Switch Witch will leave. Her kindergarten friends, of course, have never heard of this special buddy of ours, so I told my daughter that the Switch Witch only comes to houses of children who believe in her. She loves this tradition!
I worked at Walt Disney World’s Hollywood Studios for 6 months. I spent nearly every day at the parks, either working or just being a guest. One of our five cardinal rules is “Protect and Preserve the Magic.” Even when I was outside of costume and just a guest, I’d greet every Prince and Princess with a bow or a curtsy and a “Hello, Your Highness!”
I was 23 years old.
I don’t see anything wrong with it.
Of course, when I’m here in Ohio I’ll tell people about the time I saw all the princesses smoking in the backstage area bitching about their husbands..
Yes, Virginia. There IS A…n alligator.
This is perfect and completely right. Riley deserves to be loved by the little alligator (that isn’t but is). His compassion is utterly lovely.
So so awesome.
Coincidentally, our pediatrician actually encouraged this sort of thing at our last visit. So, doctor approved “lying”!
Also, I MUST remember the Switch Witch this Halloween! So Cool!
Oh my gosh, HOW SWEET is this? LOVE it :)
It’s only wrong if when he’s 21 he still doesn’t realize there was never a tiny alligator living in the cupholder. Just like I was 21 and didn’t realize that our compost pile didn’t magically grow pumpkins and watermelons but that my dad just planted them. Which would be fine to just believe it but I TOLD people about this magical compost pile we had growing up. UNTIL I did it when my dad was around and he came clean. OH THE EMBARRASSMENT.
are you kidding?! love, love it.
what’s cool is that he wasn’t pissed it’s a girl.
That’s so great! We have fairies who live at our house and who leave presents. Its all part of the magic of being a kid.
HECK no!! That’s AWESOME! :)
That’s no worse than dragging your kids to church every Sunday for their entire life and telling them there is an invisible man who lives in the sky and controls their every action.
Once we took our 5-year-old to the park and brought three millipedes home with us so that he could examine them more closely and let them crawl up and down his arms for a while. When we had to let them go, he was really sad and cried after seeing them burrow into the soil. That night, my husband wrote a note on our living room whiteboard on the millipedes’ behalf, thanking James for letting them go so that they could go find food and reunite with their families. The note was signed off by “Millie”. Our son was delighted and ever so honoured that the millipedes came back and wrote him a thank you note.
Haha the only thing wrong with this is that you probably underestimate how long you’re going to have to maintain the charade. Do you know how many notes and stories and reasons and whatnot you’re going to have to come up with? Good luck :)
Whoa, I may be the only voice of dissent here…and I’m even a little conflicted. My boyfriend and I have always said that we don’t plan to do the whole Santa/Tooth Fairy/Easter Bunny thing with our son because we want him to know that Mom and Dad always tell him the truth, ALWAYS. Even when it’s hard to heard. But reading all these responses makes me wonder if he’ll miss a fundamental imagination element of childhood or some crap like that. I’m a little torn. I love the idea of him exercising his creativity and imagination, but I hate the idea of him ever questioning if I’m telling him the truth. And I’m thinking it won’t hurt him not to tell him fairy tales, but it might hurt him if I do tell him fairy tales and then have to explain that they’re not true. Again, I’m conflicted…and I’d welcome any thoughts on my lone opinion.
P.S. I suppose I should add that, being so conflicted about this topic, I certainly don’t have any strong feelings about other people telling their kids tales like Santa/T.F./E.B and Allie Gator (hi, Linda!) I just don’t think I’m going to do that with my kid. (Insert nervous laugh. I seriously don’t want to start a flame war here or anything.)
I love, love, love it! We had George the Ghost at our house when I was a kid. He was the one who was always responsible for a door being blown shut, knocking things down and swinging on the empty swings. I still love the memory of George.
I on the other hand convinced my nieces that I don’t have a belly button and someday they will grow a tail. Now I hear, “Mommy told us that you tell a lot of fibs.”
I always vote yes on imagination!
I think this is completely awesome. Anything that sparks and encourages imagination is fine by me!! Besides, I think these are the things that kids remember as they grow older, and fondly reflect on when thinking about their parents. I certainly remember all the cool stories and stuff my dad used to do for me, and cherish it to this day.
I grew up with little fairies that came in the night to visit and I sewed clothes for them (on the sewing machine!!!!!) and made furniture for them and they wrote me letters and once in awhile would leave me a gift, like a new barrette for my hair or a piece of bubble gum. I don’t think it’s wrong at all. Let me cause a huge ruckus by saying that I don’t see a lot of difference between Santa and Tooth Fairy and Allie Alligator and organized religion. A little mysticism never hurt anyone, and it adds fun.
and here’s where I admit what an a-hole I am to my kid in the name of a good joke. On Sunday I convinced the 4 year old that she ate poop (it was brownie batter).
No…that was perfect!!! My mom used to tell me and my sister that elephants lived in our kitchen and left footprints in the peanut butter jar…we lived between Dallas and Fort Worth…you would have thought I would question that…but no…have fun…we did!
Susie:
I agree with you! I intend never to lie to any children I might have, about anything, including Santa etc.
I do not think it is “wrong” to encourage a belief in Santa or tiny alligators, but it is not what I would do myself.
I remember not fully believing my parents about Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc., but I kept asking them over and over, and they kept telling me that they were real. I thought that FOR SURE my parents wouldn’t keep lying to me, would they? But oh yes, they did.
And when the truth came out, eventually, I was upset. I felt cheated, but not because the Easter Bunny did not exist but because my parents had LIED to me. To my face! Repeatedly! Honestly, it made everything else they told me suspect. I remember feeling disappointed in them and wondering what else hadn’t been true about things they had told me.
I think children deserve our respect and part of that includes our honesty. I wish my parents had told me the truth about Santa Clause when I asked them, instead of perpetuating a ridiculous charade that made them seem unreliable and untrustworthy for deceiving me for so long.
That being said, I fully support the rights of others to tell their own children what they want to tell them, about Santa Clause, or tiny alligators, or death, or how babies are born, or whatever. But I will tell my own kids the truth, always, in all cases.
I should add that I had a rich fantasy life even without my parents’ intervention: I read fantasy books all the time and was totally convinced that if I kept looking, someday I would see a fairy. Or a unicorn. Or walk into a wardrobe and end up in Narnia. I believed in those things with every fiber of my being. And although by now I have recognized I probably won’t be making it to Narnia or go riding a unicorn any time soon, I still hold out hope for catching a glimpse of a fairy. You don’t need to believe in Santa to have the ability to imagine and fantasize about mystical things.
Wrong? No. Awesome? Yes!
Linda – I think this is wonderful! Gives him a wonderful memory!
Susie & Kim – interesting perspective! I remember when I was told that Santa wasn’t real and I felt like I was being let into a wonderful secret of grown up life – like I was a member of a club and I was charged with not ruining it for my younger siblings. And the magic of the tooth fairy and Santa was so much fun. I never suspected them as liars. I enjoyed reading your thoughts, though.
That is just AWESOME! My Riley has a “Baby Monster” who lives in the HVAC duct above his changing table… he watches Riley with one yellow eye peering out from the ceiling vent. “He’s not scary Mommy, he’s a good guy, like Woody and Buzz. And he’s a cute little baby monster!” I think tonight the baby monster might leave Riley a note…
They call the preschool years “The Magic Years” for a reason! I think Allie is a great idea.
To respond to Susie and Kim (and others who may be pondering what path to take), here’s a possible compromise: you could tell your kids that Santa et al. are real, but if your kids really start becoming suspicious, tell them the truth. For Kim, at least, it sounds like the main issue was the fact that her parents continued to perpetuate the story after she had clearly grown wise to it.
Just my two cents!
I once spent WAY to much time making zombie repellent powder and zombie killing spray in much this same spirit – http://twitpic.com/14z7aj
It’s all good
Fostering imagination in your kid? Shame on you. (Seriously, I am clearly the wrong person to have an opinion on this. I honestly do not get the fuss over such things. I will totally teach my daughter about Santa and his friends, and I have faith it won’t scar her for life.)
That’s not wrong, it’s awesome and adorable on every possible level! Will you be publishing picture books on the Adventures of Allie the Alligator soon?!? Because that would totally rock!
Is it any more wrong than telling him about Santa Claus? :) Absolutely not – so have fun! Yay for Allie the Alligator!
Wait…are you saying the tiny alligator in the cup holder isn’t real?!?
Santa and the Easter Bunny are some of my favorite memories growing up. I’ve never felt anything but love and gratitude for my parents for all the work they did in fostering those lies. I intend to do the same for my kids because it makes me very, very sad to think of them missing out on those memories. So, you know, to each his own.
I sometimes suspect kids are hip to our charades and buy into them because it’s so much fun to imagine and pretend. If I had attempted to put this one over on my (four-year-old) son, he would have said, “You’re joking. Right, Mommy?” and after several attempts to convince him I wasn’t, I would have admitted that yes, I was, and then the two of us would probably continue on as though it were true. He seems to want to be in on the imagining (although he most definitely believes in Santa and I sincerely hope he won’t have Kim’s reaction when he finds out it’s a fantasy).
awesome. one of my most favorite memories from preschool is our teacher telling us we were going to grow a lollipop tree. we planted lollipop sticks one afternoon, and the next morning as we drove up, they had planted a young tree and taped lollipops to the branches. i still remember that exact moment of complete and utter awe. we had grown lollipops.
keep it up.
Totally love it!
Heck no. That’s sweet. Children should have some wonder.
Only if it’s wrong to be AWESOME!
I hope not, because I just totally bullshitted Milbarge about polar bears.
She’s been having nightmares about being chased by polar bears with big pointy teeth and finally I said “Well, polar bears don’t eat little girls, they only eat fish. The only reason they’d be chasing little girls is to give you a big hug. Polar bears like to HUG little girls. They don’t bite them.”
Then I Googled “polar bear hug” and showed her two polar bears hugging and said “See? Polar bears are really good huggers.” She seemed pretty satisfied with that.
About that time, Sam started clearing his throat and finally hissed “Do we really want to teach her that polar bears hug little girls?”
I said “Sam, if we ever get to a point where our children are unsupervised around polar bears, we have bigger problems that this bullshit story.”
I think it’s great. My in laws have already ruined my nephew for this stuff. Seriously, we’re in Disney and I’m asking if he’s excited to meet the mouse, and he’s like, “it’s just a guy in a costume.” Which yes, yes it is, but holy crap, kid, you’re bumming me out.
OH he’s the same age as Riley for what it’s worth – I think a few weeks older.
Nope… I think it’s all kinds of awesome!
Love it!
@akeeyu, I just about fell off my chair reading your story. Hysterical!
@Linda, we’ve done it. Brilliant!
On the occasion where my 3-year old wises up to a story and has asked “Did the cat REALLY say that?” I’ve answered “Well i’m not sure, but let’s pretend he did. So NOW what happens?” Imagination is just like everything else in life… if you don’t use it, you lose it.
So great. You are a good mom. Pish posh to any naysayers. You are not only fostering creative imaginative play, but someday in many, many years, he will look back on this and realize just how much his mama loved him.
That was great!
Deep down, Riley probably knows there is no teeny tiny alligator in the cup holder. He wants to have fun with you. It’s what kids do, they pretend, they believe, they explore. Nothing wrong with what you did at all – I agree with a few who have said it’s like playing a game. Lying? Really? No.
My dad had a little game like this when I was little. My parents divorced when I was very young and I would spend weekends with him. He had this little set of indian nesting baskets with lids. Long story short, Mr. Magic would come in the night and leave little trinkets in the innermost basket – candy, a balloon, etc. It was so much fun! I don’t ever think he was a liar because he pretended Mr. Magic came and left me gifts.
I do agree that if a kid repeatedly asks if something like this is true or not and you keep saying, no, it’s true, it’s true – that might cause a problem later – but I never asked if Mr. Magic was real, I just believed he was. Because I wanted to and it was fun. Maybe deep down I knew he wasn’t and so I didn’t ask. My mom told me Santa wasn’t real the first time I asked the question when I was 7.
Kids need to be kids as long as they can, especially now when everyone seems to want them to grow up so dang fast. Believing in magical things is a big part of the fun of being a child.
Susie and Kim (and Linda): just wanted to add that I think this is a really kid-specific thing, and parents can probably tell what their particular kid wants or needs. Riley seems delighted, so yay! My own three-year-old daughter is a fanatical make-believer but is also incredibly EARNEST in a way that I think I was as a kid, too: she loves the stories, but it’s really important to her to know that they’re just stories — otherwise, she gets anxious. So we read Santa stories and leave out cookies for him, but when she checks in with me whether this is real or just pretend, I always reassure her that it’s just pretend — I’m instinctively sure that trying to convince her it was real would actually make it much harder for her enjoy playing along. This can occasionally make me feel like we’re a bit of a buzz-kill: we went to a performance of Peter Pan this weekend and, predictably, when Peter asked the audience of kids if they believed in fairies, she gave an audible “No!” (She was still willing to clap to revive Tink — she’s not a total curmudgeon.)
All of this is largely to say that this is another one of those issues on which it’s ridiculous to take an abstract, universalized stand: I 100% believe parents who say that Santa/the Easter Bunny/the Tooth Fairy are magically wonderful parts of their kids’ childhood, but I also know for sure, on a gut level, that insisting wholeheartedly on them with my daughter would upset and confuse her. As with so many things, you follow your kid’s lead, and Linda seems to have done that beautifully.
That’s awful. You suck.
KIDDING. How fun!
I’d have to agree with Susie on this one. There is no issue with fostering imagination in a child, I find the real world full of wonderment. As a child I found delight in the simplest of things like ant farms, polliwog eggs, and science. It’s a great big world people :)I refuse to lie to my children as a matter of trust. My daughter often turns to me with the questions she feels she may not get an honest answer to elsewhere. I like being her “rock”. I like being the one she knows will answer the hard questions. Has my child missed out because of a lack of fairies and elves? Most assuredly not. The world Itself sparks her imagination. The Santa thing also hit too close to home religiously. For our family “tis the reason for the season”. Instead of discussing how Santa snuck in the night before, we use the time to talk about what we are thankful for. My children know that the gifts they give and receive weren’t made for free and are received as a showing of our appreciation to them so they feel loved. It’s a declaration of love in our family. I don’t want my children to ever say, “dad is Jesus and God real?” “Well of course” “but you said that about Santa, the toothfairy, and the easter bunny”. “well, this I really mean”.
Chances are pretty good that the conversation may not happen, but as a child it was the question I asked my folks.
If you feel the need to make things up for your children, ask yourself why. Is this world too mundane for you? Is there no wonderment in nature? I choose to live the complex life as uncomplicated as possible.
I just started to cry!
Not wrong at all.
My step son (6) believes I worked for Santa as an elf until I meet his father 5 years ago and asked Santa if I could leave to be with him.
I even found a kids Santas Workshop t-shirt which I have “handed down” for him to wear.
Whenever we see pictures of Santa and his elves he asks me if I was working in the “adults factory” on that day, since I’m not in the picture.
The ‘lie’ has got a little out of hand, in the way it does when kids ask more questions which leads to more made up answers but it’s a lovely little ‘lie’ for our family and we enjoy the fantasy of it.
OMG, not wrong. NOT WRONG! This is right up there with the ‘lie’ of Santa.
This is one of the sweetest things ever…
I think that’s so sweet. Growing up, I had a friend bunny rabbit who I could only talk to while tuning into a certain station on my parents’ waterbed (built in headboard radio, pink waterbed, 80s as). My Mum would go into my room and talk over the baby monitor so I could hear it in my parents room and I’d talk to the bunny that way :D
I remember being unsure if Santa was real and I asked Mum…I was concerned I’d be an adult and not know if he was real or not! So Mum promised to tell me if I reached 40 and still didn’t know. Hahaha!