Thursday, October 2, 2008

I'm A Big Freaking Liar

This is the post where I publicly out myself as a liar. It seemed perfectly innocent. Just a little white lie. I was at Walmart yesterday and I saw an ADORABLE little shirt that would look cute on Brookie. Then, out of the corner of my eye I spotted an even cuter headband. I could just picture her in them... AND they were on clearance! Problem: as most of you know Brooke is a very selective clothes wearer. I knew these were exactly the type of clothes that I loved and she hated, so accepting defeat, I put them back so that some other mother could come along and snatch them up for her little girl to look darling in.

I went about my business, gathering up the usual boring necessities: shampoo, toilet paper, toothpaste... Then, it occurred to me! "Brilliant!", I thought, amazed at my own creativity. It was so simple. The head band was a Hannah Montana brand and Brooke is a HUGE Hannah Montana fan. I decided then and there that I would buy them and wrap them up in a shipping box. I addressed the box to Brooke and made up a fake address for Miley Cyrus as the sender. I ran out and stuck it in the mail box knowing that Brooke loves to check the mail when she gets off the school bus. I couldn't wait for her to get home & discover it!

All of a sudden, it occurred to me that this plan of mine wasn't quite as flawless as I had originally believed. For starters, I was getting a twinge of guilt for lying to her. That was easy enough to ignore though. I told myself I lie to her about the tooth fairy & Santa in the same spirit of fun & anticipation. The stinker was that I didn't want her to go to school wearing said items and brag that she had gotten them as a gift from Hannah Montana and have everyone call her a liar. My child couldn't get called a liar for her mother's lie, after all! So, I typed up a letter from "Miley" about how she had this new product line and she chose some of her coolest girl fans to send free product trials to. "She" said that she thought Brooke had great taste and was hoping she could wear the shirt & headband to school so that other girls would want to go out and buy some. It was all a great, big marketing gimmick. Somehow, this sounded like a feasible explanation to me. Bonus: every time that I wanted to buy Brooke something & have her actually be excited to wear it instead of fighting me on it I could just send her another "shipment" to "product test". In my lying mind I foresaw all of our wardrobe battles being a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, my daughter is officially smarter than I am. She was skeptical from the minute she checked the mail.
"Uh, Mom... why does she have the same handwriting as you?", she asked.
"Hmmm... that's interesting. It does look a little like mine. That's cool that Miley and I write the same way."
She casually opened the package as if it were a box of canned peas or something equally boring. And you know what she said? "Oh." That's it! "Oh."
So, I played it up. "Wow! That is SOOOO cool! I can't believe that came from MILEY CYRUS!!!"
"I can't wear that to school."
"Why?"
"It's too cute."
"Of course it's cute, it came from Miley Cyrus! She always looks cute!"
"Ya... I'm not wearing that."

So, I guess I'll just return them to the store. My "brilliant" plan was an abysmal failure. The worst part? This morning I tried to convince her to just "be brave & wear it one time for Miley." She said, "Good try, Mom." I guess I may be a liar, but I'm not a very good one.

11 comments:

  1. your kids never cease to amaze me. They are so funny and so are you. Really? Product testing from Miley Cyrus-that is genius, and I can't believe a 6 year old didn't fall for it. You have one smart cookie on your hands.

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  2. Wow, impressive creativity on your part, you really should call up Miley and get a job for her. then maybe you'd have some influence on the clothes.

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  3. Product testing.

    May all my children-lies be as creative and sincere as this. As a mother you should go down in history - and as a child, Brooke is a non-cute dressing phenomenon!

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  4. thanks for the visit, i just spent the last 20 minutes checking out your blogs! i'll b back!

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  5. Too funny!! You have such a beautiful family:)
    Keep up the great work. You do such a great job with the scouts. My boys will miss ya and so will I. Keep in touch.

    Love ya,
    Adrianne

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  6. Good try, babe. You are a creative genius. Next time try sending it from someone a little less cool, like Jan Brady.

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  7. You took all that time and energy to sin and she didn't even buy it!? So depressing. You'd think she would be grateful for all that you do for her. :)

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  8. That was very creative! My Dad tried to trick my youngest sister into believing he'd legally changed her name from Sandy to Sandra (she loathes Sandra) and had a pro envelope and everything. His ONE mistake that she saw after 5 seconds of freaking out? Putting Katie's birthdate down, not Sandy's. He was SO dead.
    I think it would have worked better if you typed the letter, LOL, and if it had been from Walmart.com, cuz I have gotten trials cuz I fill out surveys...man SO glad they didn't turn those horrid taco things into a really sold in stores product...so gross!

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  9. That's awesome - I am forever going to remember this trick. I am also going to try using it on my own children when the time comes. Sweet.

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  10. Oh wow, this is a great lie. I wish I had kids so I could lie to them. Maybe I'll just lie to my clients. They are all on drugs - they'll probably fall for it.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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