Lies My Parents Told Me

One Christmas when we were little girls, my parents gave us each our own Cabbage Patch Kid. This is when they were all the rage and our family didn't have much money. It was a huge treat. Amy had Molly, Jenny had Denny, and I had Coleen. They had pretty dresses and we each got a little basket to lay them in. We loved our baby girls throughout our whole childhoods. Several years later, when Amy was married, Jenny was in college, and I was in high school, it was revealed to us by our parents that these sweet girl Cabbage Patch Kids we'd lovingly raised all our loves were, in fact, boys. That was all our parents could get at the time, but they wanted us to have girl dollies, so they threw out the boy clothes and got girl clothes and doctored the birth certificates. Molly was actually Olly, my Coleen was actually Cole, and Denny... well that was the same (although as an interesting side effect we all grew up thinking Denny was a girls name and would think it funny if we met a guy with the name). We were outraged! Our parents had been lying to us for years! What a deception. I would certainly NEVER do that to my kids!!

Fast forward another decade and I have my own little girls. Lydia is now 2.5 years old. She's used a pacifier all her life and although we've tried to take it away a few times, we've never been successful (after like an hour of crying at nighttime I'd finally give in and give her the paci). Anyway she had her first dentist appointment on Wednesday where the dentist told me that there was an indentation on the back of her teeth from the paci. The good news is that it corrects itself as soon as the paci is no longer in use. The dentist told me that she sometimes helps kids by asking them to give their pacies away and that there is a lot to the symbolic act of them actually giving the paci away. I asked her to give it a shot so she spoke to Lydia and said "you know what Lydia? I have a lot of little babies that are very sad. They need pacies. Do you think you could give them your pacies so they can be happy?" Lydia: "yeah. And then I'll get new ones?" Dentist: "No, because you're such a big girl and don't need a paci anymore." Lydia: "yeah, cause I'm a big girl!"

So that afternoon we get home and I ask Lydia if she wants to collect her pacies and give them to the dentist to give to her babies. I ask if she wants to give them straight to the dentist or mail them. She gets very excited about mailing them. I got out a ziplock bag and gave it to her, and we went around finding all her pacies. Then we drove to the post office, stood in line, and when it was our turn went up to the desk. I held Lydia up and told the Postal Worker that we wanted to mail the pacies to the little babies. Lydia: "because they are sad". Postal Worker: "Oh they will be so happy! How nice of you!". Then the lady placed them behind the counter. I explained to Lydia that the lady would put the pacies in the dentist's mail box, where the dentist would pick them up and hand them out to the little babies and they wouldn't be sad anymore. Later Jamie took her out to buy her a stuffed animal that she could cuddle at night when she missed her paci. That night Lydia went to bed without any fuss. Same with last night and tonight. Mission accomplished.

All we had to do was elaborately deceive our two year old daughter. Oh the lies, the lies! When will they end?