Mom, I telling da troof...

So here's Natalie's new thing. She likes to fib. It's usually just small things, but still.. she does it, and she does it frequently. It's the age so I try to not get too upset, but sometimes it gets frustrating. Her usual thing is getting a snack from the fridge or freezer- sometimes the pantry- and then she brings it to me and expects me to give it to her. Even if she's just had one she'll say "I didn't get one wast night. I need to have one for my belly can feel better." And, of course, Drew wants whatever she has. And if she doesn't get one then she pitches a royal fit. But she's my third child so I'm used to it. It's not a big deal.

So last night I'm sitting downstairs watching a show with Kent. I had tucked her in about 20 minutes before and things are relatively quiet. She really likes to sneak down at least 2 or 3 times a night to spend more time with me. One Tuesday night she came downstairs and told us that there was "something nasty, really nasty" on the stairs. Usually when she says that it's a diaper that didn't make it to the trash can (or that Drew took out to carry something around), and we pick it up and throw it away. Sometimes it's a bug that is so small we have to get down on the floor to see it. Well we didn't really think much of it, but it was past her bedtime so we finally went to look. It was a pile of something kind of coarse. It looked like sand or something... We really couldn't figure out what it was. We just knew it started at the top of the landing and came down to the bottom of the stairs, most of it in a pile on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stair. We tried to get her to tell us what it was. It wasn't there when we put her to bed, and all of the other kids were in bed. She just kept saying that it was something really nasty and she didn't know what it was. Kent got the vacuum and cleaned it up. I interrogated her and asked her to tell me what it was or at least show me where it came from. She said that it was nasty so she threw it in the trash. That wasn't possible because she didn't come to the kitchen to throw anything away, but she took me to that trash can to show it to me. So Kent finishes, and as he get to the top of the stairs he sees the source of the mess. An empty salt and an empty pepper shaker. They had just been refilled, so were quite full. I'm not sure why she did it, but she adamantly denied making the mess, and didn't know where it came from. But when I said she shouldn't tell Mom and Dad lies, that she should tell us what really happened, she simply replied, "Mom, I telling da troof..."

Then on Wednesday night we put her to bed. After a few minutes we knew that we had heard her moving around upstairs, but she didn't come down. We were just going to ignore it, but Kent needed something so he ran upstairs to grab it. Then he started yelling. Natalie got some toothpaste, lip moisturizer and ointment and put them all over the floor. Again, we questioned her as we cleaned it up and I said she should tell Mom what really happened, she simply replied, "Mom, I telling da troof..."