16 Things I Must Confess to My Children

Before I had kids, I was determined I’d be one of those honest moms. You know the kind; the ones who always tell the truth no matter what. But then I became a parent and life got real. In my effort to cushion my children against the world, I fed them a bed of lies. I want to start over, this time with the truth. The only way to do that is to come clean about a few things.

1. I used to mix vitamins into your oatmeal and tell you it’s normal to one day have purple oatmeal, one day have pink, one day have orange. Totally depends on the company’s choice.

2. When I called McDonald’s and said they were out of French fries for the day? They weren’t.

3. When we planted tiny individual Skittles packages in the backyard, and the following week we dug up huge packages of them? They may not really have grown from the Skittles we planted.

4. When you were little, I lied to you when I said the best movies were rated G: for GOOD, PG meant only PRETTY GOOD.

5. I know I told you that soy ice cream is just as delicious and creamy as dairy ice Cream and you can’t even tell the difference. Not one bit. (Wrong: big difference. HUGE. Not even close.)

6. Root beer really only comes in one color: brown. I know I said that the yellow stuff your dad drinks is yellow root beer.

7. In the winter, when it got dark out earlier and it seemed to you like bed time came right after supper? Maybe I changed the clock.

8. When you’d ask me to go fast on the freeway and I’d make like I was stepping on the gas but instead I turned on the fans in the car and told you we were turbo powered? Sorry, we really weren’t.

9. The wrinkles on my face aren’t because I didn’t drink all my juice as a kid. Drink all your juice or don’t, you’ll still get wrinkles.

10. Your hermit crabs didn’t run away to find a mate.

11. Your fish didn’t jump into the sink to find a mate.

12. Your turtle didn’t crawl down the bathtub drain to find a mate.

13. Your frog didn’t hop out the patio door to find a mate.

14. The four lies above can be explained with this truth: I didn’t read the How To Care For Your Pet books for all your animals that the pet shops gave to us when we bought them. (Chapter 1: tap water = bad)

15. The boy in The Giving Tree book that we own is really is nice to his mother. The edition that everyone else has, well, that’s one that hasn’t gone through my censor filter yet. Stick to our copy.

There you have it, my children. A full confessional from your mother. I feel my soul thirty pounds lighter already. I’m so glad I was able to get this off my chest so we can start over, clean slate style. Tonight, I shall sleep the deep sleep of a cleared conscience. Now, do me a favor and hurry upstairs because now that that you’re older, you need even more sleep than when you were little. It’s true, you’re supposed to get 14 hours. Minimum.

Honest.

Related post: 18 Lies Moms Tell Their Kids to Stay Sane