Secrets are so hard to keep! TB stinks at keeping a secret, plain and simple. Great Grandpa used to say he loved when Tessa would come to visit because she was like a little newspaper. She loved to tell Great Grandpa what everybody was up to around the ranch. TB also has a memory like a steel trap. So when she tells a story she rarely forgets a detail. TB also gets very excited about the stories she tells and often spits them out as fast as she can. The trick is to follow along fast enough to get what she’s telling you.
If you tell TB something is a secret, that’s almost worse. It’s made more difficult by the fact that she remembers every detail, and loves to share stories. I have said, “Now don’t tell Dad what we did today, it’s a surprise.” She will sit down at the supper table and without a second thought tell him every last detail of what we did. Nothing is a secret. I would love to be a fly on the wall at school. I sometimes wonder what details about our family life have been shared at school. Or maybe I don’t want to know!
When The Husband and I found out we were expecting baby #5 we (or maybe I) didn’t want to tell everybody right away. We knew that if we spilled the beans to the kids, TB would never ever be able to keep it quiet until we were ready to tell. So we opted not to tell the kids for a while. We were right. We sprung the news on the kids at supper one evening and that was all we had to do to get the news out. Taking an ad out in the local newspaper wouldn’t have been nearly as effective. I picked the girls up from school the next afternoon, I hadn’t even pulled out of school parking lot and my phone was already ringing asking if the news was true. It probably doesn’t help that we live in a really small tight knit community, and news about a family having the FIFTH baby is big news. And BIG news travels fast, really fast! The Husband and I’s phones rang off the hook with people calling for conformation for the next 3 days, and Facebook was on fire! The funny thing is, The Husband and I never told a sole, just the kids!
I don’t know how many times that TB has spilled the beans at Christmas. It doesn’t help that The Husband is a big kid at Christmas too. He loves to try to find out what his gift is, I don’t know if I have ever really surprised him. Somehow he always finds out. His favorite source of information is my little open book, TB. He starts out nonchalantly asking all of them questions. They have all been given coached answers, because the coach knows his play book. They hold out as long as they can! Then out of the blue he trips them up and the cat is out of the bag. There is a pretty good chance that TB was the one duped.
This year was no exception. I had even contemplated not letting the kids help wrap his gift. Part of the love that goes into a gift is the wrapping of the gift. It’s not really fair to deprive the girls of that joy, just because their father will want to find out what the gift is. There is also joy in seeing someone’s face as they open the gift you gave them. I always figured he was the one ruining his own surprise and if it didn’t bother him it shouldn’t bother me. So all 5 girls helped me wrap up the gift, and they so proudly put it under the tree, just knowing that dad would be so surprised.
So tickled about their recently wrapped gifts, they sit down to supper that night and tales of wrapping gifts ensued. It isn’t long at all before dad has them “wrapped” around his little finger. They are chattering on and on about what they wrapped for classmates, 4-H members, teachers and friends. I can see the writing on the wall. He casually starts asking if they wrapped one for him. Of course 4 little mouths answered “Yes!” as quickly as they could. (The 5th one would have piped up if she could’ve.) I can see an almost devilish smile cross The Husband’s face like, “GAME ON!” The questions started like a firing squad, and my troops took them on just like I had instructed. One at a time they gave him the prepared answers to his quiz. Like a clever fox he makes his way around the table, it doesn’t take long to spot the weak link. He hones in on TB like a magnet. I remind him that it’s not fair to quiz the girls, that he should just let it go and wait until Christmas gets here… like grown-ups do! Nope. On goes the inquisition. So “Is it a shirt?” the fox says to the mouse. “No!” TB says. “New boots?” he asks. “NO!” she answers again. “Oh I know! It’s a pair of chaps!” “Yup!” and then it hits her like a brick, and the look on her face says I just ruined Christmas.
She started to tear up, so sad that she couldn’t keep the secret. She says, “Mom, I don’t like to tell a lie.” I hugged her tight and said “Everything will be alright, If dad wants to spoil his surprise that is up to him. It’s good to be honest.”
Moral of the story, we don’t have many secrets at this house. Just ask TB!
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