The honesty of a two year old sure disappears at age three.
Strolling back into the living room after using the potty, my daughter begins to play with the Barbies that the call of nature interrupted. I follow up with her as to proper post potty procedure.
“Did you wash your hands?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, not even turning her head.
Hmmm…
I go inspect.
Her hands are dry. The sink is dry. The towel is dry. It used to be she couldn’t wash her hands without getting everything soaking wet including the bathroom floor.
When she was two, I could ask her if she broke the snow globe, and she would readily admit it. I could bring her into the pantry and ask why she rearranged all the soup cans onto the floor and she would casually explain her motives. But at age two, she always admitted the wrongdoing. The fact that her Ducky Momo stuffed animal was left at the scene of the crime didn’t matter. Now, she can be caught red handed – or in this case, dry handed – and completely deny everything.
We go back into the bathroom and thoroughly wash her hands, in a manner that hopefully suggests that doing it right the first time is a good practice, but lying about not doing something results in not only having to do it anyway, but having to do it twice as much, so no benefit was gained by the deception. That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see how it works. My hopes are not high.
I also give some instruction during the re-wash: “You must wash your hands every time you use the bathroom or you could get very sick. Do you understand?”
She acknowledges that my mouth was moving and that words were probably coming out, but if you asked her what I said, I’m not sure she’d know. Is she a teenager already? That was fast.
She’s a smart kid, so I’m sure she will catch on eventually. Usually, threatening her with loss of Big Girl status carries some weight; maybe I’ll try that next time. I’m not actually sure what she thinks that means, not being a Big Girl, but she desperately wants to be one, so the threat of not being one is a big deal. How exactly the threat is carried out, is beyond me. But as I say, that may be a tactic we try after the next deception.
Which, by my watch, will be in about 3 hours…
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For more amazing cuteness from my 4 year old daughter and the rest of her hilarious family, check out my Savvy Stories book series here. (Book two is on sale today) http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Alatorre/e/B00EUX7HEU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
