Truth be Told

I sprayed some foaming carpet cleaner on the carpet this morning which had to soak in for 3 minutes, per the instructions. I certainly wasn't going to waste a good 3 minutes of my day standing there watching it so I headed into the kitchen to sweep.

On my way out of the room, I spied Tate curiously eyeing this fun white foam that Mommy just sprayed on the carpet so I firmly told him, "Stay. Out. Of. The. Cleaner."

I set the microwave timer for 3 minutes because everytime I try to multitask household chores, something gets forgotten. A load of laundry may stay in the washer for a day or so (then need to be rewashed because it stinks), the chicken I meant to set out for supper is still frozen solid in the freezer at 5:30pm, or I misplace my phone because I can't remember which room I was last in when I was trying to text and clean at the same time.

As I was sweeping the kitchen, Tate came through and went straight for the towel that hangs on the stove door handle. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him wiping something very carefully and thoroughly.

"What ya wipin'?", I asked the child, whom I'm convinced will show up at his wedding with spaghetti sauce smeared all over his face because that is his signature look.

"I'm tryin' to wipe this cleaner off my monster truck", he said truthfully.

Which struck me as odd. He is one of my sneakiest children. Didn't he know he had just incriminated himself? He could have easily gone into another room to wipe it off. Or he could have said he spilled his water on it or something. (No, I'm not condoning either of those scenarios but they sound more like Tate).

"Mommy told you to stay out of the cleaner Tate," I reminded him, thinking of an appropriate consequence to his disobedience.

These were his exact words (including the extra "you"), "Well, my monster truck didn't hear you...what you said. He just got in there!"