“I’m not going to tattle on you.”

That’s what Isabella said the other morning. We had been having a discussion and she just said that, for no apparent reason. Because her mind operates at a different speed and in a different direction (that would be “velocity” to you engineer-types), she frequently says things that don’t immediately make sense to me, things that don’t seem to logically follow the present flow of the conversation (that would be “non sequitur” to you writer-types). But, I enjoy a good challenge, so I always try to figure out (that would be “investigate” to… oh forget it) what she’s talking about when she says things that seem random.

This must be what it feels like to her all of the time, with things being said to her that don’t quite make sense. There’s the Central Auditory Processing issue which may cause her brain to fail to comprehend consistently the sounds that make up speech. There’s also the Sensory Integration Dysfunction which may cause a general difficulty in processing information from any of her senses. What it boils down to is that sometimes the things we say to her get lost in the winding path from her ear to her brain.

I picture that path as Dallas’s High Five mixmaster roadway during the construction phase: there is debris in the road and road branches that lead to dead ends and orange cones and barrels and flashing lights that distract your attention and cause things on the path to run into one another, creating huge backups. (Hopefully, with hard work, her path will eventually be like the finished freeway, with everything cruising above the speed limit in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane).

But in this case, she turned the tables on me. She had said something that made sense in her way of thinking and it was up to me to decode it. As she walked upstairs, I tried to figure it out… “I’m not going to tattle on you.” I replayed the conversation up to that point. It had ended with me saying something like, “And that’s why you can’t have chocolate cake for breakfast.” Of course the Bill Cosby song immediately spun up in my head as I said it. “Dad is great… give us chocolate cake.” Hey, that was ME! I was the dad now. My brain, like my writing, wanders off unattended.

Then it hit me. The statement wasn’t the product of an LD mind, it was a typical kiddo thing to say. “I’m NOT going to tattle on you.”

The development of deception skills is a pretty straightforward path, and, as it turns out, common to both of my children. Isabella’s following the same path learning the Way of the Liar; she’s just taking a bit longer. I’m okay with that; I just want her to keep going. Yes, I want her to develop her sense of lying so that I can hit her with the Bible on her unusually normal-sized head and tell her why she isn’t supposed to do it. I don’t want her not to do it because she can’t; I want her to intentionally refrain.

What am I talking about? Sorry, I skipped ahead – I’ll go back. A child’s path to deception starts with “I’m going to steal a cookie,” to “I’m NOT going to steal a cookie,” (Isabella’s current phase) to “I’m just going to the kitchen for a second” to a muffled crunching sound coming from the closet. Even later it’s “My sister stole the cookie.” My ten year old Madeline’s equivalent would be, “What cookie?” or “I don’t see a cookie,” or “Why would I eat a cookie?” or “I’m thinking about getting a tattoo.” She knows we know the Way, so she tries to befuddle us so she can slip away under the cover of confusion.

So, how did it turn out with Isabella that morning? I hear some muffled conversation upstairs, then I hear Carrie explaining, “Daddy just doesn’t want you to have sweets in the morning, Honey. It’s not good for you.” Good ole Carrie, she’s got my back. (Although she could have said, “We don’t want you to have sweets….”)

I’m proud of my Isabella. She’s on her Way.