The Metaphysical Lives of Children,.. or "if a child whines in his room and you don't hear it, is it still irritating?"

Oy vei. I guess my kindergartner's life just isn't has dramatic as he'd like. I got a phone call from his speech therapist yesterday, 'mother to mother.'

"Well,.." she says, "My son went through this stage and I thought I'd want to know as a mom,, so I thought I should call you."

Great. Smile through the phone. "Oh yes, please, thanks for calling me, what's going on?"

"Well, I don't know what's happening at home, but Kyle was really sad today and told me that you are going through a divorce."

WHAT?!

"Uhm,.." I stutter. "Please be assured we are not and I'm not sure where he got that idea."

"Well, I thought I would talk to his teacher" (Wonderful,l now the school thinks we have a volatile, unloving household) "And she did tell me to be careful, because he is prone to telling stories, like the time he told her his dad died in the war in Iraq. Which, she said she knows isn't true because she's met Kyle's dad."

ARGH!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. My boys seem to think the grass is greener on the other side. When smaller, they would get mad at me because they never got to go to daycare when 'all their friends did." Now, they think their friends of divorced parents are 'rich' because they have two houses. Maybe Kyle was just trying to show off with the war hero and the broken home.

Too bad we have such a boring, poor life.

This little lying stage doesn't bother me, however. I'm a smarter mom today. My oldest son also went through this phase. The 'pinnochio' phase as I call it. I remember believing my oldest son's stories until one day I found out he had lied about the mean lunch lady at school not allowing him to get food. But not until I'd had a meeting with both the principal of his school and the lunch lady. I learned to take a deep breath and that boys between the ages of 5 - 10 don't always know the difference between reality and, well, their reality.

Somehow, my imaginitive kid, the middle son, skipped this phase. Maybe he's too busy building dragon traps in the backyard and trying to hatch rocks, er, I mean dragon eggs in his room to lie to me about stink bombs going off on the bus (Jared) and his daddy going to jail (Kyle).