Spud and I are really looking forward to the enormous lies we can tell Kit. There's a window of a few years when they believe everything you say. Mwah, ha ha ha!
But with great power comes great irresponsibility.
I'm not talking about Father Christmas or God, nor bearded people in general (though I will be telling Kit he can disregard anything told him by a man with a beard - or woman for that matter.)
Sure, we'll leave out carrots for the reindeer and some crack for Santa. And for the morning we'll make snowy footprints and leave a pile of steaming reindeer poo.
But why stop there, when there's an eager mind ready to be filled with nonsense?
By 7 though, it's over. A neighbour told me his 7-year old said: "I don’t believe God exists, because I know dinosaurs did."
Kids today.
I like Eddie Izzard's little fib, "Bees make honey and wasps make jam." And a friend of Spud's who, when asked where shampoo comes from told his kids that it's made from the poo of an animal called a sham.
Spud has already assured Kit that it's the spiders that make him sleep against his will, but the real problem is the worms, who are their overlords. The spiders, apparently, also perform the role of sock monster, as they have so many feet to warm.
My mate Andy convinced his youngest that he invented rice. Yes, rice.
He also told her invented all forms of motorised transport. And when she asked how he knew the punchline to her Christmas cracker joke, it was because he wrote it. Indeed, he wrote all jokes.
Won’t she be disappointed when she finds that none of it is true, apart from the one she didn’t believe: "I'm Santa Claus. It was me all along."
Sure, dad. Can I have some more of your rice?
Dina Murphy's brilliant 5 Things I Swore I'd Never Do As A Parent includes some magnificent porkie pies, like "Pigs are horses for gypsies" and if you stick your hand down the toilet it will emerge from a toilet in Albania where a monkey will eat it.
Is it so wrong to answer that L plates are only worn by the cars of lesbian drivers?
But the biggest lie we peddle to our kids is the one about the great man with a white beard who listens to everything we say and passes judgement. Rubbish. Rupert Murdoch doesn't have a beard.
