Help! My Three Year Old Is A Liar!

My kids have a real issue with food.  Since they are still pretty young, the problem is not what I’m sure to face when they are teenagers (eating me out of house and home) it’s just the opposite.  They DON’T eat.

While my six year old IS getting better and FINALLY starting to try different foods other than macaroni and cheese, hot dogs and chicken nuggets, my three year old is the absolute WORST.   He will take a drink over food any day, any time of the week.  I am so over trying to get him to eat.

Well, I have finally figured out that everything comes down to a battle of wills.  Dennis is constantly testing me and trying my patience (of which I have very little left to begin with).  He will ask for juice over and over and will not stop until I cave in and give it to him.  Unfortunately, I usually do too because it’s just easier and I don’t want to hear it anymore.

Well those days are over.  Today, I have decided to FINALLY stop letting him work me over to get what he wants no matter how hard it is -for me.   He needs to know that I am the one in charge.  Wow.  I am SO ashamed of myself for letting him get away with this crap for this long already.

This is how the juice thing went down at lunch time today.

D:  Mommy can I please have juice?

Me:  No.  You can have water.  After you finish your sandwich then you can have juice.

D:  I don’t want to eat, I just want juice!

Me:  Too bad.  You need to eat first and then you can have juice.  If you are thirsty, then you can have water.

D:  I don’t want water.  I want juice!

This went on for at least 45 minutes.  But, I NEVER gave in and gave him the juice.  Yay me!

After realizing that he wasn’t going to get that juice he sooo wanted without eating first, he finally said he would eat.

Here’s where it gets good.

Dennis walked over to the table where his plate had been waiting for him for the last 45 minutes.   He picked it up and walked away from the table and into the other room.  The Boss and I were sitting in the family room which is right next to the kitchen so when Dennis walked away, we couldn’t see him anymore.  I thought maybe he was mad (he has a tendency to sulk and pout when he doesn’t get his way) and decided to go eat in the playroom on the little table that is in there.   But it was quiet.  Very quiet.

The Boss and I looked at each other and we both knew that it was much too quiet and that Dennis HAD to be up to something.

The Scene Of The Crime

We have a love seat  in that room and it has a throw pillow on it (see photo above).   The Boss got up and walked into the playroom and snuck up behind Dennis.  There, he found our son attempting to HIDE his plate of food.  He was putting his plate behind the pillow to hide it when my husband walked in the room.  Not aware that his daddy was standing there behind him, Dennis proceeded to brush away the crumbs on the couch and smooth down the pillow.  He took a step back to check out and admire his “cover up” work and to make sure everything looked in order.

Then he turned around and saw Daddy standing there.

Knowing that he was full-on busted, he looked at his dad with a big smile and sweetly said “I ate it all.”

OMG!  MY THREE YEAR OLD IS A LIAR!!!

Dennis lied right to my husband’s face!  He’s THREE for crying out loud!  I thought kids didn’t even know how to lie at this age.  Why do I get to be the lucky one?  My kid is a…gasp… liar.  OMG!

The Evidence Unveiled

In case I lost you somewhere let me recap it all for you.  My three year old son walked his lunch plate over to another room and hid it behind a pillow, made damn sure it wasn’t obvious what he had done, and lied to my husband’s face about eating it.  All so he could have a sippy cup of JUICE!  Are you freakin kidding me?

So here’s how we handled that one.   As soon as we stopped laughing our asses off about it (we made sure to walk away from Dennis first), we very calmly but sternly explained that what he did was wrong and lying about it was worse.  We did our best to explain WHY it was wrong but ya know what?  I’m pretty sure Dennis didn’t even give a crap.  I have no doubt that what we said went right  through one ear and out the other anyway because after all of that, all he wanted was that damn juice!  Still!

I am happy to say that we did not give in and he didn’t get SQUAT.

I will admit that it IS much much easier to just cave and give him what he wants so I don’t have to deal with the tantrums.  But in the long run, am I doing myself any favors?  Hell no!  I created this little monster because I took the easy way out so now I have to suffer the consequences and figure out how to fix it.  However, I absolutely will NOT take the blame for his premature lying!

I do have to give him credit for originality though.  The whole hiding the food behind the couch pillow was pretty good since he could have taken the easy way out and just slipped it directly to the dog.   I guess I’ll know who to blame when my little dog starts to look like Porky Pig since I have no doubt the next time Dennis does not want to eat, our dog will get first dibs!