One little thing

Before I forget:

When Grandma E was here, she decided to spoil the kids in appropriately grandmotherly fashion and bought them an Elmo cookie from the bakery. It was a big cookie and expensive so I said it was enough for the three of them; she got what she thought was a prune something for herself, but that turned out to be a chocolate something, which she couldn't eat, so she let them have that too. So what ended up happening was that I cut the cookie in half instead of in thirds, cut the chocolate something in half instead of in thirds, and each boy got to pick a half. Avtalyon picked half the Elmo cookie and the bigger boys each got a half of the chocolate something.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because Iyyar has lately been having some issues with a) telling the truth and b) keeping his fingers out of places they're not supposed to be. I left the extra Elmo-cookie-half on the counter and went to do something else; a little while later, I came back and saw the unmistakable signs of Iyyar fingers all over the frosting. It looked like he'd succumbed to temptation and pinched off about half the red icing. Eww. Also, not authorized.

"Iyyar," I said, sternly. "Did you take some of the cookie you weren't supposed to eat?" Iyyar, eyes opened wide, shook his head no. I raised my eyebrows. "Please tell me the emmes [truth]. Do not tell me a shekker [lie]. I only want the emmes."

Iyyar just barely nodded his head. "You ate it?" Tiny little head-nod again. "Were you supposed to eat it?" Tiny little head-shake, eyes very very wide. "Can you say I'm sorry, please?"

Very very quietly, "I'm sorry."

I got the knife back out and cut the mangled cookie into thirds, and gave a piece to each of the three of them. Then I gave Iyyar a kiss on the head and said, "That's for telling me the emmes. Please don't do that again. Next time, ask for the cookie instead of just taking."

I went back to the sink to wipe up from the cookie-cutting and the boys turned back to their cookie-eating. And that was when I heard Barak remark, "Well, that was a pleasant surprise."