Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Lie

I caught Big Kid lying today.

In the past, his lying was always accompanied by a completely ridiculous face which was a dead giveaway. As he's matured to the wise old age of 8, the "lying face" has been toned down but the look of complete gut-wrenching guilt is still prevalent. It works out well for me, although he rarely lies and he almost never gets in trouble.

But once a month we have a mother/son "book club" meeting where we grab a drink and sit somewhere and discuss what we've recently read. Today was our most recent, and I recalled seeing a book I thought he was talking about and asked if it belonged to the library. He was evasive but seemed visibly relieved when I mentioned seeing it in the book basket at home.

And then when we got home I saw an email from his teacher saying that it was a classroom book that he borrowed and that had been missing since right before winter break, and that he had tried to pay for the book with his own money that day. When she realized he most likely hadn't told us about using his money to pay for the book, she decided to email and ask me to help him look for it.

I confronted him and asked what had happened and he instantly confessed that he thought he lost the book and took his wallet to school and left $10 on the teacher's desk to cover the cost of the book.

I pointed out that he should have told us, and could tell us anything, and he said he felt guilty about losing the book and it was his problem so he was going to take care of it. I also pointed out that he is relatively rich (Big Kid is a saver. To an almost ridiculous degree) and had he lost his wallet, we would have bigger problems than a lost book.

Despite the omission of truth...goodness, am I proud of that little liar.

May our problems always be as big as trying to use his own money to pay for a book he's lost.

6 comments:

Jennifer said...

Even when he is being bad he's good.

KatiePerk said...

Aww. That is really cute!

Jennifer said...

Oh my goodness... that is precious! I LOVE that he took care of his problem on his own!

Auntie A said...

He is such an AWESOME kid - Mama Ashley, you must be about to bust with pride - you have obviously done a great job with this kid!!

JT said...

He's very sweet.

Livie said...

Totally agree with Jennifer... Even being bad he is good! I just wonder what little kid would've done in his place! Lol!!