So for the past 7 nights, Ayris has gotten to sleep in my bed because Chris has been gone. I reminded her last night that tonight she'd have to sleep in her own room. Of course the dramatics began tonight when we told her it was time to go to bed. She didn't know why she couldn't just sleep with both Chris and I. I told her that Daddy was lucky he even got to sleep in the bed because there was barely room for him and the two cats as it was. She whined and cried for a solid 10 minutes before I finally told her to get upstairs and go potty. By the time I made my way upstairs, she was calling out from under the bed.
Ayris: Mom, I'm just going to sleep under here since there isn't room in the bed with you and Daddy.
Mom: No you're not.
Ayris: Why not?
Mom: Because there are spiders under there! (This was the honest to God first thing that came to my mind! Lame right? What kind of mother uses fear as a tactic!)
(I can hear Ayris scrambling to get out from under there and into her bedroom...)
Ayris: Well, why are there spiders under there?
Mom: Because it's dark.
Ayris: Well how do you know there are spiders under there?
Mom: I don't...maybe there's not? (Trying to backpedal at this point, since I've finally accomplished getting her into her room...which was the initial goal)
Ayris: Well, would the spiders hurt me if I laid under there?
Mom: I don't think so...they might just crawl on you. But maybe there's not even spiders under there right now...who knows?
Ayris: Well what if they are in my room?
Mom: They're not.
Ayris: But you said that the reason they're under your bed is because it's dark...and it's dark in my room, so maybe they're in here too. (SUCH A DEDUCTIVE THINKER THIS ONE!)
Mom: You know what...we probably don't even have spiders upstairs because it's too high for them to climb.
Ayris: But they might be in my room?
Mom: No, they are absolutely not in your room.
Ayris: How do you know?
Mom: Because it was sprayed with a special spider spray to keep them out.
Ayris: When?
Mom: I don't know! It was done when they built the house! Ayris, just go to sleep, there are NO spiders in here!
SO...the moral of the story is that it doesn't pay to lie for 3 reasons: The first, is that I didn't save any time in the long run...I probably would have spent less time coming up with a better way to coax her out from under the bed versus this 10 minute discussion about where the spiders may or may not be and second...the poor child is probably going to wake up screaming bloody murder tonight because she thinks she's covered in spiders (this has already happened on more than one occasion AND on those particular nights, we hadn't even had a 10 minute discussion about spiders) and lastly, I'm sure this whole lie is far from being over with...at some point, you just know she's going to see a spider in her room and then I'm going to be subjected to a million more questions about why the spider spray didn't work and how can we get some more?, etc, etc, etc.
Oh the joys of trying to raise a healthy, happy kid...and all the unfortunate missteps I seem to be making along the way!
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