| By Cheryl Demas They do try sometimes though. Once there was a stray dog in our neighborhood, and of course I just couldn't leave it running in the streets. So we brought it home and put it in the backyard with our dog, Alice, until we could find the owners. I told the kids, "I will tell Daddy about this, but let's wait until he gets home so he can see for himself how cute the dog is and he won't get upset about it before he even sees it." So later that day when my husband called, Nicki answered the phone. "How is everything going, Nicki?" Another time they did a little better, managing to keep quiet until they thought that the deception had gone too far. I don't like confrontation, and I don't like arguing, so when election time rolls around I pretty much pretend to agree with my husband. In the 1996 presidential election, we agreed that we would both vote for Ross Perot. But at the poll, Nicki was at my side as I punched my card for another candidate. I was hoping she wouldn't notice. No such luck. Believe me, there would have been no hanging chads in the 2000 election if my daughter had been standing alongside every Florida voter. She went over my ballot as if her life depended on it. "Mom! Do you realize what you just did?" she gasped. We rode home in silence, and I waited for her to spill the beans at dinner that night. She remained silent. Weeks went by and I thought I had gotten away with it. Until one day when Mike was on the phone with his mother. "Cheryl and I both voted for Perot," he told her. Apparently I'm not alone in these little deceptions, and mothers aren't the only guilty ones. I was at the coffee shop the other day and I overheard a little boy ask his dad if he could try a sip of his drink. "Sure," Dad said. The little boy winked at his dad, "But we won't tell Mom, right?" |
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