Sometimes Being a Mother Means Lying Your Ass Off

Being a parent means that kids look up to us, at least until they turn about 12 and we become the scum of the earth who don't understand how to be cool. When they're little though, when they still believe that a refrigerator box can be a rocket ship and the best thing in the world is getting to stay up late enough to watch just ooooone more episode of Phineas and Ferb, they think that every word that we spew is gold.

Honestly, our time in this phase of adoration is limited. Gotta soak it up while we can.

Naturally, being the incredible pilar of parenting that I am, I use this power for evil.

As it turns out, I'm a complete and total liar. A fraud. A sham. I'm a seller of snake oil and a promiser of promised lands. This is something that I come by honestly (which you'll have to just take my word for as I've just announced to you that I let untruths flow like wine around these parts), but never realized how bad off I was until the most wonderful time of the year was upon us and a certain Elf on the God Damned Shelf presented me with opportunities galore to fill my children's heads with falsehoods. 

I spit out lies like a Pez dispenser

First of all, who invented this shit and why are we all doing it? It's bad enough that I have to mentally Nadia Comaneci up in here when it comes to Santa and all of the plot holes that little storyline comes with, but now we've added a toy elf that can zoom around the fucking  house in the middle of the night so long as he isn't touched by human hands into the mix?

OH, THE HUMANITY!

Not ones to save ourselves from hassle and inevitable heartache, our elf came to be part of our family last year and was dubbed Bonus Lightening McQueen by my children. No, I don't know why. Bonus resided with us rather uneventfully for his first season in our home, but this year has been a bit of a different story.

First of all, being the unmitigated jerk wad that I am, I decided that Bonus would be a great tool to use when my kids were in need of a lesson entitled, "Stop screwing with Mommy." After two days of terrible temper tantrums out of Julia and a morning in which I was awakened by them playing in the bathroom unattended (if you're confused as to why they aren't allowed to do that, you can refresh your memory here. It involves flushing things down toilets and subsequent calls to plumbers), I decided that Bonus was going back to the North Pole for a few days because the kids had been placed on the naughty list. The fact that their brat-like behavior coincided with my complete failure to move him the night before was just a happy coincidence. 

I wrote a quick note in my best, most loopy and elfish looking handwriting, snuck it up next to him on the mantel and then made a big show of finding said letter when the kids abandoned their posts at the snowman soap dispenser that they were systematically emptying on the bathroom counter so I could read it to them as a means of explaining why the elf was in the same spot he'd been in the day before. The letter read as follows:

Dear Patrick and Julia, 

Your behavior over the last few days has made me very sad, so I've decided I have to go back to the North Pole. The way you've spoken to your mommy and daddy was very mean and I can't be around if you're going to make such naughty choices. Refusing to listen, throwing tantrums and playing in the bathroom aren't allowed, so right now, the two of you are on the naughty list. If you start behaving again, I can come back. I really hope you do, because I would hate to have to go live with another family.

Sincerely, 

Bonus Lightening McQueen

I wish I could say I'd invented this idea myself, but it was actually the genius of my friend Genevieve. I saw it on her Facebook page and knew I was going to need to keep that one in my back pocket, especially because it had seemed to really resonate with her kids. I mean, screw parents being disappointed in you. Nothing can cut as deeply as a doofy looking elf thinking you're a dick, amirite?

Well, two things happened as a result of this treachery. Thing one is, my son was bereft that the elf bugged out, which was a bummer because his behavior wasn't nearly as douchey as his sister's and thing two was his sister isn't stupid. Even, like, at all. 

Once her brother was out of ear shot, she turned to me and said, "The elf didn't move last night."

I replied, "Nope, he was over your behavior."

Her eyes narrowed. "But, if he didn't move last night, how did he know we were going to break the rules in the bathroom this morning?"

I could have come up with a complicated answer to the kid who questioned Santa's ability to enter our home without the aid of a chimney when she was three-years-old, but instead I yelled, "I DON'T KNOW HIS LIFE!" and then ambled away so she couldn't see the fear in my eyes. 

Her smile says, "I'm sweet and innocent," but her eyes say, "I'm onto you, beotch."

Which brings me to the second bit of deception involving this doll. After two days, the children were returned to the "nice list" and the elf resumed his hijinks around our house.

He's crashed his helicopter into the fan, proving once and for all that elves should not be issued pilot's licenses.

That is, until two nights ago when I, again, forgot to hide the little bastard. Robert had been sick as a dog and slept on the couch, so I'd gone to bed without thinking about the elf for a second. Around five in the morning, I realized that he was still clinging to the top of the surfboard in our family room where he'd been chillaxing the day before and did that quiet run that parents have all perfected. 

You know, the one were you kind of run on the tips of your toes down the hallway in order to move with ninja-like silence because you don't want anyone to hear that you're up yet and bust in on you having 4 minutes of coffee time to yourself? Or using the bathroom without their company? Or hiding a stuffed doll around your house like a schizophrenic so they'll believe in the magic of freaking Christmas? 

So, I do the silent run, yank the elf off the top of the surf board and turn around to find a suitable place to stash him only to be met with the confused and mildly stunned eyes of my four-year-old son. I froze like Anna at the end of, well, Frozen. I was completely busted. 

This. This is the look I had on my face.

He'd realized at some point that my husband was sleeping on the couch and had come out to sleep with him. Now, at 5am, with a week and half to go before Christmas, I found myself in a standoff with my child as I clutched his "magical" friend in my hand, a friend that humans are forbidden to touch, with a look of terror on my face. My mind screamed at me. 

"You've just completely ruined his entire childhood! You have GOT to fix this, his entire ability to enjoy the wonderment of Christmas and Santa and all of this crap is contingent on you fixing this! Do something!! DO IT NOW!"

With the Christmas tree sparkling and twinkling behind him, my son's voice broke through my mental anguish. "Mommy, why are you touching Bonus?"

A memory sparked of a story I'd heard long ago of my friend sprinkling cinnamon on her elf when her son tried to choke the poor thing out as a means of "restoring his magic," and I donned my most relieved facial expression. 

"Oh Patrick, thank goodness you're out here! Bonus has daddy's cold and I need your help to fix him! Can you get me a towel out of the laundry room? We need to make him a bed!"

I'd like to thank the Academy for recognizing my ability to lie like a sociopath...

He sprang into action like a paratrooper dropping into Baghdad, grabbing a towel and running it into the kitchen for me where I constructed a little bed for the elf and commenced dumping cinnamon on his face and pretending to dribble vanilla extract into his mouth as a means of curing his elf cold. He looked on with the concern of a loving parent as he watched me dote on his friend and a realization hit me. 

We're not lying to them because we're playing a long game with their emotions that will only end in disappointment. We're going through all of this rigamarole in letting them believe that Santa can come in through the doggy door when there's no chimney and that elves can move through the house at night and that bunnies bring eggs to your yard every Easter and that there are fairies who pay good money for your teeth like those dudes on Pawn Stars because the world is scary, we all grow up too fast and for just a few years it should be okay to believe in shit. For just a little while, it should be alright to think that the world is wonderful and magical and fun and great. 

I mean, c'mon, isn't being a kid all about thinking everything is pretty neat-o?

As I watched him look at his now recuperating elf, perfect trust in his eyes at the lie I'd just forcefully extracted from my butt, I felt zero guilt about everything I'd fabricated to this kid. He's going to figure out soon enough that the only real magic in this world is that which we make for ourselves and, doesn't building an entire Christmas fantasy about a a friendly elf named Bonus fall pretty squarely into that box? The awesomeness of being a kid doesn't have to end just because we got older and "wiser." It lives on in our kids and it'll live on in theirs too.

Seriously, look at his face and tell me that letting him believe in magic isn't pretty magical in and of itself.

Until, of course, your five-year-old gets up and starts questioning the medicinal properties of cinnamon and then asks why the elf is still smiling if he's so sick, at which point you'll have to again remind her that you don't know his fucking life. 

So god damned skeptical.

Happy Holidays all. May your days be merry and bright!