What is the difference between a story and a lie?

We tell stories all the time, whether it is just an account of some happenings in our day, or a grand retelling of a funny story with extra emphasis added for effect. We get to exercise our imagination telling stories. Imaginary friends are a nice example – without the story the friends would not even exist. Stories entertain and convey knowledge

But what makes lies different from stories? The intent of a lie is to manipulate, to influence people by deception to obtain some goal.

Grace has had two interesting stories in the last couple of days. She had some paint on the back of her shirt recently and when we asked about it she said someone had bumped her with a brush. Okay, sounds reasonable. Today she had glue all over the front of her dress and when asked she said, “Someone flung the glue at me.” Hmmm….suspicious.

I was finishing some things up at the end of the day and Grace comes in the door and says, “You need to come and change Eli’s nappy, he’s made a poo.” Okay, I know it’s been a long day for Donné with Eli not sleeping, let’s get done and go and help. I get inside and there is no poo nappy, and Donné tells me that she explicitly told Grace not to tell me that after Grace had told her what she was going to tell me that. Hmmmm….telling a story to get me to come inside a bit sooner.

Stories or lies? And how does one really explain the difference between the two and still encourage story telling?

While Eli slept and recovered from the outing yesterday, Grace was on form….

Finally the official chance to sing the skeleton song, as well as fun in the sun with friends. What the kids did all day was play on the slip-n-slide – definitely the best option for a hot and sunny day.

Friday's is show and tell, and Grace wanted to be a lady bug…so we caught some ladybugs from the garden (we have a bush which they love) and sent them off too.

I was out from early this morning until after 19h00 and Donné and Eli have picked up a stomach bug. Luckily my little girl was very well behaved and also concerned about mommy bringing her her water and saying, "You've got to drink so you can get healthy mama."

Eli has started "talking" to us. There is a certain sound, "ah-goo" which he seems to love, smiles for and then tries to copy, making happy baby noises while he smiles away.

"Why did Simba's daddy die?"

Grace has discovered talking on the phone. Over the weekend Granny called and Grace had a fat chat with her, sung some songs for her, then sung a song for Grandpa and would have been quite happy to keep on talking.

Today she had a 15 minute chat with Gogo telling her all about the weekend and listening to Gogo's stories about the birds and the dogs.

It is interesting to hear her offering free information, like telling Gogo about the hadedahs which have moved into our back yard.

The only thing she struggles with a bit is that she wants to show the other person things (like Christmas decorations) and doesn't quite get that they can't see them.

We kept ourselves busy this weekend….and I think we wore the baby out….

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Grace loves it when Eli smiles at her, or even just vaguely in her direction. She says (in her super high pitch squeaky voice), "He smiled at me! Babies are sooo cuuute."