Oh the lies we tell!!

Any parent knows that there are times where one must tell a little white lie.  It happens.  We as parents do this so that our little ones don't have to immense themselves into the crappy, hard reality of adulthood.  For instance, when I was a child I had a bird name Peppy.  I still think Peppy is at the vets trying to get better from a cold, when in reality Peppy was tossed in the dumpster at my Dad's work when he found him feet up one morning.  And honestly, I am happy my parents told me that because I so loved that bird.  So when I get caught in those not so nice moments when I know that the reality is going to cause my little ones pain...yep, I reach out and grab onto a little white lie.  This was all well in good until my aspie got a little older and a lot smarter!

I have mentioned before that my aspie loves trains.  I need to express though that it's not just a I'm in a train phase, it's more of a I have train on the brain 24/7 type of love.  Therefore, you can imagine that we have our fair share of trains around our house.  The fact of the matter is that its pretty much the only type of toy, besides the occasional truck, that my aspie plays with, so we have tons of trains.  Luckily the baby loves trains too, which I still don't know if its because his big brother does or its because he genuinely likes them too.  Either way, my main point is to have you imagine mountains of trains in our residence.  So you would think that if one or two go missing due to them being broke my aspie wouldn't notice.  Oh, then you and I (being that I thought the same thing) would be wrong.

 I have done a little purging of toys before Santa comes or before birthdays, but I have never touched the trains.  Something told me then not to touch them...almost a gut reaction, females intuition maybe telling me, "STOP, don't do that!"  But on one particular day of wide spread cleaning my momentum overtook my intuition, and a few trains got the toss.  And they needed tossed. They had broken couplings, broken faces, or no wheels.  Virtually unrecognizable, I swear.  And I have noticed them not playing with these trains either, so I figured no harm, no foul.  Oh was I wrong.

Apparently, my aspie felt the force shift when the trash left the house that day.  He walked into our dining/train room and started playing.  I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready when he walked in with a very serious face.  "Mommy, I have to ask you?  (This is how he starts nearly all conversations that are not scripted.)  I can't find my trains."  I felt my muscles tighten almost instantly when I heard him say that.  The same way you feel when you got caught sneaking out as a teenager.  That "Oh Shit" moment.  "Oh really, just keep looking, I'm sure you will find them honey."  I know, I know, I probably should have told him the truth right then and there...but I couldn't.  I thought he wouldn't notice.  I thought I would get away with it.  I thought wrong!  So, he shuffled off to keep looking for his trains and I started coming up with some sort of lie to cover up what I had done.  I was sweating...literally.  I knew he would be back, I just knew it.  And he was...about fifteen minutes later.

"Mommy, I have to ask you something.  I have looked everywhere and can't find Thomas with no wheels, Gordon with the broken couplings and James with the cracked face.  I can't find them anywhere."  "Oh really honey, do you still play with those broken trains?"  "Those are my parts trains mommy!!  Like Pap-pap builds trains!!!  I need those for parts!!!"  And those three sentences I heard over and over again for the next half hour to hour, even though I told him my well rehearsed lie of them being at the train doctors getting over a cold.  I tried this lie thinking that if it worked once, it would work again.  It didn't.  Not even for a second.  "Mommie, trains aren't people or animals.  They don't get colds.  They don't have doctors, they have engineers.  My trains are not at the doctors!"  I kid you not, that was his response that he told me without blinking an eye or missing a beat.  I was had.  I had to tell him the truth, and it was worse than trying to get out of any trouble I might had got in when I was young.  I had to out myself to my 4 year old.  "Honey, I threw out your trains because they were broken and I thought you didn't play with them anymore."  That is what sent him into the repeating rant that he went into for the next hour and night. 

After a night full of apologies, I was laying down with my aspie to go to bed and he said, "Mommy, remember the time you threw my trains away?"  "Yes, honey I do."  "You should have asked me first like I have to ask you."  "Yes, honey you are right.  And I have learned my lesson and next time I will ask you."  It was at that moment that I was again reminded that I don't have your typical four year that you can sneak one past.  I have an aspie that will call me out on everything.  And my aspie had to remind me that the truth is the best policy...and if I didn't get away with it with my parents....I won't get away with it with my kids either!!! 

**Ross-s-Run has a date and location!  We will be racing on October 19 at Cedar Creek Park in Westmoreland County, PA.  Please check it out on www.ross-s-run.com!  And swing by on Facebook and like us at www.facebook.com/rosssrun and www.facebook.com/bipolaraspergersandmargaritas!