No WebKinz for Erika

Today marked a new day for my heretofore innocent children.

On the first day of school, the girls came back and told me "You need to give us money so we can buy lunch!" I sat down and explained to them that the reason we packed a lunch was so that they didn't need to buy a lunch every day. I explained that we would go through the menu for next week and pick out a couple of days where there was something on the menu that they really liked and they could buy lunch on those days. Otherwise, they were not to buy lunch and needed to eat what they brought in their lunch boxes.

On Friday, after I dropped the girls off at their classroom, I stopped by the cafeteria to get their id numbers so they could start buying lunch next week. I discovered that Erika had a balance of $5.25 in her account - she had bought herself lunch every single day.

My daughter had lied to me!!!

My emotions ran from amusement to disbelief. I was shocked she would blatantly lie to my face for days. She's only six! Every day since Monday, I had asked if she had eaten her lunch and not bought it and she said "Yes".

In our discussion later on, I told her that I knew she bought her lunch every day and had lied to me about it (Sasha's first words after hearing this: "And she made me promise not to tell!" More shock on my part.) She didn't think she'd get caught. I let her know that because I'm a mom I would find out everything and that her behavior was unacceptable. As punishment for buying lunch when I told her not to she needed to pay me back for 3 of the days she bought lunch. For lying to me about it she was "grounded" from playing Webkinz on the computer the entire weekend. Tears ensued along with cries of "You're mean!"

So sad when the days of innocence are gone...