Iggle Piggle you think? Not in our house he's not. He's Mickey from Strabane and he's on the dole.
I lie to my children.
There, I’ve said it. What a shocking admission. This morning I brought Cáit to the doctor. Her blocked up sinuses were concerning her mother and causing Cáit at times to talk as if she had a clothes peg on her nose. More importantly it was causing pain.
On the way down I told her the remedy was a Schnozzlectomy. I had in mind a procedure where some sort of Dyson designed contraption would be inserted up her nose and the gunge and stuff removed.
Cáit of course didn’t believe a word of it. Not since I told her there was an elephant in a field up the road when she was wee. She doesn’t believe me. There was in fact an elephant one day in afield belonging to a zoo and it licked Leo’s food, snot and gunge covered bib. But no, she does not believe me.
In the surgery, I pointed to the blood pressure machine and told her that was the apparatus for the Schnozzlectomy but she didn’t believe me. Then when Dr James started up his printer to print the prescription I told her that was the other Schnozzlectomy machine. “No daddy, that’s his printer.”
When we were leaving she asked me what adenoids were. I told her they were little people that lived in her nose that shovelled bogies out of the way much as we would do with deep snow. She didn’t believe a word of it.
I then told her about the red ball bouncing up the street this morning. For some reason she did believe that, even though it is thoroughly unbelievable. I took her over to the house where it got stuck and it was still there. Maybe that’s where the adenoids live.
But my lying has got me into bother. Treasa and Sorcha won’t let Angela read their story at bedtime. That is because I have been making up fantastical stories of late which have become so successful that they want more every night. This involves looking at the pictures in their books but telling a totally different story. Last week in a nativity book we made up a C & W song with a catchy chorus to sing every time the Stable appeared in the story. I even produced the geetar:
“In the Stable, In the Stable,
Jesus was born in the Stable,
With the donkeys and the rabbits…” etc.
It’s the Christmas #1 in our house.
Last night I was presented with In the Night Garden and told to “read your own story daddy.” So, one of the new characters – based on the creature formerly known as Iggle Piggle with his comfie blanket – is Mickey from Strabane who is on the Dole and is travelling up the Foyle to Derry to see about getting a job. Sorcha argued with me that he should be from Omagh but I explained that Strabane is the unemployment blackspot, not Omagh, sadly not a lie for once.
The rest of the story featured lies, lies and more lies. Occasionally in the past I’ve been badly caught out, because as with all lies, one leads to another. I told Peter that Japan had won a football match something like 79 – 0. He went and looked it up in some book with Leo and they immediately started quizzing me on the detail. The problems started when I couldn’t remember the name of the top scorer that I’d created.
Lying to your children. It’s compulsive. Great craic. Addictive. I’d highly recommend it. Particularly to Angela – then she could have the night shift back. Mickey from Strabane is a great fella altogether.