What A Tangled Web

My daughter and my niece take ballet and hip hop classes together so my sister-in-law and my husband take turns shuttling them back and forth. (I don't do it because I take care of The Conqueror whose bedtime falls smack in the midst of class time.) On Thursday evening, it was my SILs turn to do the chauffeuring. They arrived home much later than I expected them to so when Her Highness came inside, I asked if class ran over.

"No," she replied. "We went to eat." That isn't entirely unusual that the girls demand a snack so I thought little of it until she said that they'd eaten in.

"Well, where did you go?"

She replied that they'd eaten at a wing joint. Honestly, I was irritated that my SIL took my 8 year old into this particular establishment at 8:00 on a Thursday night because it is more of a bar than a restaurant in the evenings. I was peeved but my SIL and brother have very different views on parenting than I do so I tried to play it cool. That is until Her Highness said the following.

"Aunt Soandso said not to tell you she took me in there."

"What?!"

"Yeah, she said to tell you that it took a long time to get home."

Well, I was furious at this point. She told my kid to lie to me! Are you freaking kidding me!?
So, being me, I got on the phone and called and left a scathing message for her to find when she arrived home.

I sent HH to the shower and tried to calm myself. Soon, the phone rang.

It was SIL and she was furious that I had called and insinuated that she had told HH to lie. Of course, I believed my kid. She doesn't lie.

SIL was adamant and after five minutes of listening to her, I realized that she must be telling the truth. She said, "I knew she was going to tell you we were there. She tells you everything. We were only in there a few minutes picking up food. I knew you wouldn't like it but we didn't stay long."

I was forced to realize that my daughter had lied to me.

As soon as I confronted her, she began sobbing. Readily, she admitted that she had lied. She had no reason why she lied other than she thought she was going to be in trouble for going to this place. I explained that she wouldn't be in trouble; she is a child and was with a grown up and had no choice but to go there. I resisted the urge to rip her apart and told her that I loved her no matter what but that she couldn't lie to me anymore and that her lie had caused me to argue with Aunt Soandso. She bawled and apologized, vowing never to do it again.

And then I made her call my SIL. I didn't want to; she was so sad and upset and I felt like my disappointment and disapproval were really hurting her (she's a pleaser, God help me). It was really hard to push it that extra step but I felt I had to to prove the point and drive home the message that lying was not tolerated.

She called and cried and apologized. Then I hugged her and put her to bed, promising not to tell Daddy (I did tell him) and that it was over.

This was a situation I had yet to deal with; I think I did the right thing but it was really hard.

Seems this motherhood gig only gets harder as they get older.

And I thought the sleeping issues with the little one were hard. Yeah, right.