It turns out my kids are lying liars who lie. On Saturday night, my brother, SuperChief, babysat Garnet and May Blossom. They totally saw him coming. Here are nine lies they told him. He wrote them down and presented them to H and me on our return and I have transcribed them here. Anything in quotation marks is a direct quote from the child in question.
Lies Garnet Told
He is allowed to play the ukulele every night while falling asleep.
Gusto is a secret tiger.
Garnet can only drink warm cow’s milk.
Lies May Blossom Told
She, too, can only drink warm milk, except chocolate milk which ‘fortunately’ she can drink at any temperature.
Both children are ‘often encouraged’ to walk around downstairs while the other child is read to.
In this house, one more chapter always means two more chapters.
If anybody coughs at any point, a doctor is to be called immediately, by the babysitter, and if the babysitter fails to do this it is ‘usually’ May Blossom’s task.
Adults are not allowed to sit on a chair while reading books to children, even if they can see the pictures, because ‘we make the rules in this house’.
After the new kitchen is installed there will be room in the front garden for their cousin Pipsqueak, and (presumably but not specified, her parents Superchief and Doctor V) to move into a new house built where the trampoline currently is. This house will be made of wood. It will have a swimming pool on the roof and will have a ‘private horse field’ along with ‘a small zoo’.
There were other smaller lies but SuperChief forgot them before he could write them down, possibly because he had to read books to the kids for an hour and a half before they would go to sleep. Yet he still made them two litres of pancake batter and left it in the fridge for their breakfast, as a reward for being so good while we were out. My big brother is either a saint or soft in the head. Or maybe both. Either way, the children would like to know how soon he can babysit them again.