Pretending or Lying....

Princess Grumpy has a new dilemma. She has been having trouble with not being able to pretend. This is something that has been discussed at preschool and among Eric and I for a long time. So earlier this summer, I decided to start some exercises and work on "pretending" or making scenarios up and trying to build on and become creative about them. Basically my Princess Grumpy was not that creative, she is precocious, gifted, has a huge vocabulary, very helpful and has a wonderfully empathetic personality but her ability to pretend was / is almost as bad as her dancing!

We tried all these exercises from my early childhood educations books, we set up scenarios, nothing worked.... OK I got a new idea from dad....ask Adrian what is up.....well her response was.... in that whiny , grumpy voice she uses when she doesn't want to answer the question"Mom- isn't that lying?" After almost three months of trying to "fix" what everyone saw as a possible developmental problem I realized I started the problem to begin with!

I was so stunned! Adrian had / has trouble telling the truth about things she does. For example: "who opened five bags of jelly beans and dumped them in the sink to pick out the green ones and eat most of them", or "who dumped 500 q-tips on the floor" and my favorite- "who used the dental floss to decorate the room" ...vivid picture....all 100 yards in the brand new container around my 4 poster canopy bed. But I guess I just assumed that she either knew the difference between them or was supposed to know the difference, or just supposed to know how to pretend but learn not to lie. But somehow My little Princess Grumpy made a jump that they are the same thing and she knows how disappointed I get when she lies all this time she thought she was doing what she was supposed to which is not lie- there fore no creative make believe or pretend.
We had a long talk..... we do that a lot.... and she is now way into pretending... we have "pretend friends, and pretend daughters, pretend school, you name it we pretend now....We finally decided that the difference between pretending and lying is when you want to not answer Mom or to hide instead of answer me- it is a lie (or it will be a lie when you open you mouth). So we are supposed to think and remember that mom gets more angry about the lying than the mess (accept for the dental floss incident- that really was annoying!!!!)

However last Monday night I told my daughter, that she had special "hoppy" slippers and it was OK to wear them into a restaurant. I did it for all the right reasons- I didn't want us to not be able to eat after actually getting all the kids there and realizing she had forgotten her shoes. I put athletic arm bands on her feet over two different socks and let her pretend they were magic slippers. I carried her across the black top, into the restaurant and put her in the chair (sort of hoping that no one saw this).

As delusional as I am I thought that I could hide her lack of shoes- but now my beautiful Princess Grumpy (who had been screaming, crying and refusing to go in) had to immediately jump down and show off her beautiful new special "hoppy" slippers and hop all around the table showing the rest of the family and all the other patrons, She hopped to the bathroom later, hopped around to make sure that her "pretend daughter" was OK in the extra booster seat she had the waiter get for her, and she proudly hopped out of the restaurant to the car.

This morning she wanted to wear her "special hoppy slippers' to school - I hid them when she wasn't looking and then convinced her to wear her beautiful silver sparkly mary janes. I feel bad because I "lied" to her.... I guess I didn't set a great example for her, no matter how creative the thought...but the funny thing was today when she came home from school she found the "arm bands / hoppy slipper" took off the beautiful sparkle shoes and said to me "mom" in that beautiful, but whiny way she says "mom!!!!!! I got my hoppy slippers, she giggles, hugged me and said- great pretending mom- did you want to hide under the car instead of the bed when I asked for them this morning? you are not supposed to hide things I am very dissapointed in you!", then she hopped away.... turned around, cocked her head to the side andsmiled then blew me a kiss ...and hopped off to watch Sponge Bob !

So I wonder which of us really has the problem with pretending?