Pants on fire

Liam (who, by the way, is back at Cindy's today after having made a full recovery) has turned into a little fibber lately. At first I would walk into the room, ask who spilled something and he would say it wasn't him (even though there was clearly nobody else around to do it). Now, I don't even have to ask - I walk into the room and he starts rattling off a list of things he hasn't done. They say around age 3-4 you can expect your child to start lying, not maliciously, but as a way of reinventing history - they wish they hadn't spilled their drink, so they say they didn't do it. So... he's a textbook case. I give him a gentle reminder that it's OK to let me know he's made a mistake so that I can help him clean it up, but I think the lying is something he will have to outgrow and it might take a while.

In a funny, related side note, I clearly remember one night when Mallory was just a few months old and Liam woke up from a bad dream and wanted me to cuddle him back to sleep... only I was already up feeding Mal, and had my hands full. Chad tried settling Liam down and he would have none of it - I remember him sobbing at me to put Mallory down and come to bed with him. Maybe the memory is so vivid because it only happened the once. Regardless, in a complete 180, he has now taken to randomly telling me that Mallory might need some help and I should go find her when he wants me out of the room so he can get up to mischief. This happened just yesterday, as Liam was helping me make peanut butter balls in the kitchen while Mallory was in the playroom. He suggested I go check on her and I did, knowing full well what his intention was. When I came back, I found him with chocolate from ear to ear, and he was already defending himself as I walked into the room: "I didn't have any chocolate while you were gone." And I think I saw his nose grow a couple inches.