7/11/2012

The lies I tell my kids.

I lie to my kids.

Most of the time, I consider them to be mainly harmless Mama lies, like "Brush your teeth or they'll all fall out," or "Eat your broccoli or you'll get scurvy," or "Pick up your toys or the monsters that live under your bed will eat you," or "The vampires that live in the basement do NOT want you to go in that closet."

See, totally harmless.

But a couple weeks ago I told a lie so huge, so big, so ridiculous, that I still feel sort of guilty about it.

I totally lied to cj about when his birthday really was.

See, here's the thing.  I don't really do birthday parties.  That would require inviting people into my house and possibly dealing with other people's kids and for a recluse like me, that's just too much to deal with most of the time.  So as an apology of sorts, RJ and I always plan a fun-filled day of fun-filled activities and fun-filled other stuff for the boys on their birthdays.  Like the year zj turned five and we went ice skating, or all the trips to Chuck E. Cheese we've made.  I've blocked most of those.  Thank God.

But these days of too much fun really require two adults and multiple alcoholic beverages to get through, and cj's birthday fell this year, quite inconveniently, on a Tuesday.  RJ's day off is on Wednesday, and due to other people's vacations and scheduling and whatnot, swapping days off just wasn't an option this time.

So I lied.

We woke up on Tuesday morning and treated it just like any other day.  Same breakfast, same stories, same trips outside to play, same errands, same lunch, same nap time, same dinner, same bath and bed time.  All day long, I talked to cj about all the fun stuff we were going to do tomorrow, on his birthday.

Because I'm a Big Liar.

Cj woke up on Wednesday NOT HIS BIRTHDAY to this: 


and this:


Which is a great way to wake up on NOT HIS BIRTHDAY.

Then we spent some time shopping in the toy department so he could pick out his NOT HIS BIRTHDAY present:



Shopping was followed closely by lunch, and ice cream seemed like a perfect meal for a three year old on NOT HIS BIRTHDAY:



Then we spent the afternoon at this place on NOT HIS BIRTHDAY, where there were bouncy houses:


and air hockey:


and absolutely no alcoholic beverages of any kind.


Did I mention that they didn't serve alcohol there?

We finished up the day with dinner here:


Which, in case you can't tell is a McDonald's WITH A FREAKIN' PLAY PLACE.  And guess what? No alcohol there either.  Also, STILL NOT HIS BIRTHDAY.

Then the icing on the cupcake, so to speak, was covered in M&Ms:



When I tucked my exhausted, sticky three year and one day old into bed that night, he hugged me tighter and longer than usual and said "Mama, I love my birthday."

Except it WASN'T HIS BIRTHDAY.

But it will make a great story to tell his therapist some day, I'm sure.



5 comments:

  1. You are soooo bad!!!

    I also hate birthday partys so we came up with a "big" translate friends over party every big one, 1,5,10 and then just family for the other years!

    You will forever have guilt on this, thank goodness he wont know any better until he knows his numbers and remembers the actual date!!

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    Replies
    1. I know, I know. I figured that this is probably the last year I could actually lie about it. His brother kinda knew, but every time he would try to ask me about it I would just say "Shhh!!! We are planning a surprise and you don't want him to hear us talking about it!"

      I'm a terrible person :-)

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  2. Ha - I may need to do this in the future! Unfortunately my work requires me to often travel during my kiddos birthdays. I don't travel a lot, its just that their birthday falls over our travel season. My oldest daugher spent her first two years in Vegas so I didn't have to be away from her on her birthday. Unfortunately, not travelling is not an option if I want to keep my job, so I will be occassionally travelling on their birthdays. I wonder at what age they'll figure it out!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know, if you celebrate on a different day every year, maybe they'll never really know. It kind of stinks that the only time you have to travel is around birthdays. Sounds like you make it work, though. I'd love to be able to spend my birthday in Vegas ;-)

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