C-U-T-E Spells Liar

I quietly peeked into Mia's bedroom one day after naptime was over. Cracking the door open just a bit to see what she was up to, I was greeted with a bright room - unusual for naptime. Her shades are usually drawn, with a light left on behind the closed closet door to provide a tiny bit of light. But this time, the closet door had been thrown open, revealing tons of toys surrounding Mia on her bed.

She was awake, and ready to get up for snacktime. I leaned down to chat with her for a minute about getting out of bed to open the closet door and get all her toys to play with, when she should have been quietly napping.

Before I could get started on my lecture, Mia announced that she'd put on chapstick, and used it all up. I looked closer at her face and - sure enough - it was shiny and greasy. As was the wispy hair framing her cheeks. She pointed to her dresser, and there sat my favorite chapstick. I'd let her use it earlier that day, and forgotten to put it out of reach. But it wasn't all that close to being empty, so I started to get concerned about the fact that Mia had assured me it was all gone.

I picked up the now weightless tube and opened it - empty, as promised. Surely she couldn't have used it all, right?

Wrong. She led me to her closet door, showing me where she'd covered it with large stripes of waxy chapstick.

I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure she deserved some sort of punishment for the many rules she'd broken during her "nap," but after having her tell me everything that had happened, I was too amused to push the issue.

Fast forward a few hours later to the store, where I'm picking out some new chapstick.

"Mia, I need to get a new tube of chapstick. Do you remember why?"

She looks at me calmly and states, "I don't know."

"Because," I say, "somebody used all of my old chapstick, without even asking for permission. Do you know who did that?" I'm fully expecting her to say, Oh yeah! I did that mama! Mia's still so innocent that she hasn't quite figured out she has the capability to lie about things like this.

Or so I thought.

Instead, she comes back with this: "Weeelllll.....It was a....a....a lady. Aaaaand, she just took it and she used it ALL up, and her name was....uh uh uh...her name was Gone. It was a lady named Gone, mama. Aaannd, weeellll, she just wanted to use it so she took it."

The entire time she was reeling out this gigantic whopper, she was playing with a toy, looking completely nonchalant. Folks, what we have here is a LIAR! Had her story been more believable, her delivery would have been perfect.

While I'm fairly certain there was no lady named Gone, I now know that some innocence has gone. She'll only get better at lying.

I hope I get better at cracking down on it, because I'm pretty sure my indulgent laughter was no form of punishment.

She's too cute for my own good.