Tall Tales

My 3 year old is going through a phase I'm calling "Tall Tales".

If that phrase "Tall Tales" brings to mind Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill, you're on the right track.

Out of the blue my son will tell me this really detailed story of something that happened to him or something he did, but it's totally and 100% not true!

It began one day a few weeks ago, we were sitting enjoying some calm together time after he'd gotten up from a nap and he looked out the window and noticed it was raining and began to tell me this elaborate story about this umbrella he used to have but "he broke it". He even described what colors it was and it all sounded very believable.

Except I kept thinking, "Only here's the problem, I've known you your entire life, I know every possession you've ever had, and there was no umbrella like you're talking about."

But to him I said, "When did that happen?"

And he said, "When I was a baby, when I was a baby I did that."

There have been several other made-up stories since. I warned my husband about the "Tall Tales" but still my husband has come to me confused, "What's he talking about?!!!" As if they are things I'm trying to keep secret, rather than stories completely fabricated by a 3 year old!!!

They are that believable! It's scary.

Only today my son took it a little too far.

We were sitting together having lunch, discussing Noah's Ark because that was their story at the Bible Study he went to this morning. We mentioned the mountain the ark came to rest on at the end of the flood. And all of the sudden what came flooding out was a tall tale to end all tall tales!

My 3 year old: "One day when I was big, I climbed a mountain. I saw some mud on it. That mud needed to be washed off, that's why God sent the flood, to wash off that mud. And when I was on the mountain I saw a lion. I shot it wif’ my big hunter gun because I wanted to make meat out of it."

Me (stifling giggles): "When did that happen, Buddy?"

My 3 year old: "When I was a grown-up."

I brought up the story at dinner and my 2 bigger kids got a big laugh at it and tried without success to explain to their little brother real versus make-believe and the aging process.

"You don't go up and down, older and younger," My 5 year old daughter told him.

My 7 year old son did compliment his little brother's "great imagination," though!

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