Fibbing to children

So easter eh! Well this year was kind of complex.

We have family traditions at easter. The ‘easter bunny’ brings easter eggs and hides them about the house/garden (depending on the weather). On sunday we have ‘childrens day’ which is just like mothers/fathers day except for children. The grownups bring the children breakfast in bed and the children get total control over what we do that day. T&B LOVE it.

This year tom spotted some eggs purchased by a relative hidden in our wardrobe, this was resolved with some fast talking (aka fibbing) from anna. Anna and I were taking advantage of the long weekend to have a bit of a grown up holiday the children were staying with my parents. My parents decided that last year the children had waay too much chocolate (Which to be fair the did) so they would buy them presents instead of eggs and urged the rest of my relatives to-do the same. Thus T&B had easter without any (or very much) chocolate. They also missed out on children’s day, all in all they were dischuffed.

What to-do? Well we could (and did) tell some fibs about the easter bunny not knowing where they were and maybe they would find eggs back home. (plus some promises of moving children’s day back a week or two). To be honest I felt a little dirty telling them such bold face lies, it felt much worse than father christmas – oddly because Father christmas is (for some reason) to me more believable ??! DONT ASK! – I though about this all way home, is it worth the lies to give the children a treat? Can you ‘treat’ them without the lies? Does tom even believe it anyway? He is seven and pretty smart. Is this a lie or a game of lets pretend we are both playing? Either way the children were contented coming home, when we got home a quick trip to the shops (damn no half price eggs yet HUMPH!). We sprinkled eggs around the lounge and then went to bed.

This morning the children were sat downstairs just bursting with excitement, they had not touched a single egg but had found most of them! I gave permission for them to start collecting and boom they ran about grabbing eggs and piling them up. 20 mins of negotiation later they had 3 piles of eggs, (one for t one for b and one for m (m’s was pretty small tbf)).

Does tom believe in the easter bunny? NOPE (I rather suspect Beth does) However he plays along and enjoys doing so. I did feel a bit crappy telling lies but if I repackage the lies in a game then its a game that the children enjoy playing. The question is in Toms head is he playing with me or am I playing with him?