By Bob
May 25, 1999
For more than six years, Bonnie and I helped a single mother raise her two daughters -- Sabrina from age seven on, and Ana from birth to age 6. Because their mother was a single working woman, we often took care of the girls overnight when one or both of them were sick, to allow their mother to get a good sleep. As a result, we kept all kinds of children's medicines "in stock", including Pepto Bismol, cough syrups, asthma medicine for Sabrina, and grape flavored children's Tylenol liquid. Unlike some of the other "yukky" flavors that we had tried in the past, Ana loved grape flavored Tylenol liquid the first time she ever tried it, and even looked forward to taking it whenever she had a fever.
One afternoon when she was two years old, Ana melodramatically held the back of one little hand to her forehead and whimpered, "Bob, I have a little headache. I think I need some Tydenol."
I crouched down to her level and said, "Ana, are you telling the truth, or are you lying?"
Ana looked me in the eye with a straight face, and replied, "I'm lying."