Pants on Fire

There has been a rash of graffiti in our house lately. It seems as though my oldest has discovered the power of the pen. Now that she can write, she feels compelled to do it everywhere.

It started out on pillows and cushions (that are in our play room, not the living room, thankfully). Then it spread to her hands, her sister’s hands, and any willing victim within striking distance of her marker. Most of these were just doodles and marks, without a lot of meaning.

Next was the baby gate at the top of the stairs. Along the top of the wooden gate was written “Come Enzo. Sit Enzo. Stay Enzo. Lie down Enzo.” Not sure where this tribute to the dog came from, but apparently there was a dire need to get it out in green marker.

After making her clean it up, I told her one more incident and she would lose any chance of a play date for a few days. Of course, we are in the middle of a play date-less week right now because she popped out of bed one too many times the other night at bedtime.

So fast forward to the next day and we are making thank you cards outside. Pens, glue sticks, paper, and lots of wind. Really good idea I had.

Upon clean up, I realize a piece of paper has been glued to the wooden bench we were sitting on. I immediately say “Who did this?”

“Not me,” my oldest says, with an entirely straight face. My internal lie detector fails to go off so I ask the other suspect.

“It wasn’t me, mommy,” insists my younger daughter. Now I am wondering what’s going on. My youngest doesn’t lie (yet), and my oldest is a terrible liar. She’s all smirks and giggles.

I ask my oldest again. Again she insists it wasn’t her. And again, no beeps from my maternal lie detector.

Here we go back to the youngest. Another denial.

Now I’m sure it was my oldest. Which REALLY concerns me because she just passed of a great lie. And not once, but twice.

After peeling off more of the paper, I see that there are words written on the bench underneath. Then there are lines on top of the words as if they were scratched out.

Aha. Now I see. She wrote on the bench, then scratched it out, as if this would make it go away. When that didn’t work, she glued paper over it as a last ditch effort to cover her tracks.

The kicker here is that I had JUST reminded her not to write on anything but paper mere minutes before this incident occurred. And she even thanked me for reminding her!

But apparently that little voice in her head telling her to spread the written word was louder than mine. No wonder she just got the "Author Award" in her Kindergarten class. I guess her teacher doesn't know that she's been writing a novel - all over our house.

Now that I have her cornered, she admits to it and says she didn’t want to get in trouble, so she lied.

I explain to her what her actions mean to me. And I tell her that she loses two more days of possible play dates for writing on the bench, and another three more for lying about it.

She huffs and puffs but eventually concedes.

I guess if I have to choose between the doodling or the lying, I’ll take the graffiti any day. This doesn’t bode well for the “tween” years that are looming ahead.

Is this the end of the innocence?

Damn, if she would only have smirked a little.