Gabe's First Lie

It was only a matter of time. I knew this day was coming sooner rather than later. As often as he does things he gets in trouble for, I figured it wouldn't be long before Gabe started to master the art of lying. And he took his first, awkward step forward today.

Because I'm a sucker who doesn't learn lessons any better than my son does, I let Gabe get his markers out a little while ago. I sat down with him at the table for a few minutes and reviewed the guidelines: "Markers stay on the table. Markers only mark on paper. Markers are not food. Gabe's face and hands do NOT look better in six different colors." I gave him some paper and set him loose.

Oh, and I came up with another, BETTER justification for leaving him unsupervised while he does these things that will inevitably lead to messes--because he'll never learn responsibility or independence if I'm hovering over him, correcting his every move. That sounds like a real reason, right? I might have pulled that right out of Dr. Spock's ass for all I know. And now it's the excuse I'm going to stick with.

Anyway, he markered up the paper quickly enough, and took to other activities with the markers. He started by putting them all together to build a "magic wand." That was a new concept as far as I was concerned. I'm not sure where he came up with that one. Dorah, maybe. Or maybe it was from our latest shared viewing of the Dungeons and Dragons movie (best. movie. ever.--with Jeremy Irons and a Wayans in it, anyway). At one point, he was on the floor playing with them and I went into the dining room, picked up the markers, put them all back on the table, and reminded him of the rules.

Then I got distracted by emails for no more than five minutes. Mind you, I could sort of see him out of the corner of my eye the entire time since my office desk is right next to the dining room door, but somehow I didn't manage to catch him, once again, drawing on the wood floor.

"All right!" I said in my best authoritative voice--which, because I sound a little like Kermit the Frog, isn't really all that authoritative to anyone but Gabe, and only to him because he hasn't heard that many REAL authoritative voices in his life to compare mine to--"No more markers! And no markers TOMORROW either!" I declared.

He walked into the living room as if to say, "Whatever, old man." I started to gather up the markers, but most of the caps were mysteriously missing. "Gabe, come in here and help me find the caps so we can put these markers away." By this point, his attention was focused solely on Dorah, so I had to repeat my demand. Three times. Finally he turned and wandered non-committally into the dining room. He walked over to the gate that blocks the stairs and pointed over it. "Caps," he said, and he walked back into the living room. I picked up those caps, matched them up with the markers, and we were still two short.

I called him back into the dining room and asked him, again, where the caps were. I showed him the colors he was looking for.

"Mail truck," he said.

"What about the mail truck?" I had no idea what he was talking about. This was the first I'd heard anything about a mail truck all day from him.

"Caps in mail truck," he claimed.

"Really?" I said. "How did they get in there?"

"Caps in mail truck," he repeated, following the Fox News method of journalism where, if you say something over and over enough times, it becomes "truth."

"Cookie Monster pieces in mail truck!" he added, as if this somehow explained everything. Again, no idea where that one came from. We haven't had his Sesame Street character puzzle things out in a few days.

I spied the caps on the floor under one of the chairs behind the table. I pointed them out to him. He went around and picked them up and handed them to me.

"See, they weren't in the mail truck, were they?" I corrected.

"Caps in mail truck," he said with finality and he went back into the living room. And I have to give it to him, at least he didn't cave under the pressure or give in under the crushing weight of my evidence. The kid might have a future in broadcasting or politics some day.