Lying to my child

I admit it. I lied to my little toddler. Wasn't the first time either.

There was this lemon poppyseed cake cooling on the table. There was also a bowl of soup in front of the child. But he kept eyeing the cake. He says:

want cake

I encourage him to forget about the cake by removing it to another location and saying things like:

eat your lunch
have some soup
try the beans
we'll have cake later

But he's not buying. He still wants cake.

Then comes the whining.

Finally I tell him the cake is too hot and that he has to wait. That was the lie. The cake is too hot.

He knows about hot. He tests his food by sticking his finger in it and announcing 'hot'.

Technically the cake was still cooling. Describing it as 'hot' was a tad exaggerated.

But it worked. He stopped asking for cake.

Rewind to this morning:
On the daily walk with the dog, he kept asking for

more cookies

The only thing I had handy was a bag full of library books, a bag of dog poop, and some kleenex.

He didn't understand that there was no more cookies right now. He tried to understand, I could tell by the way his wheels were turning. His lip was pouting. His eyes were glazing over, ready to spurt some tears. But every explanation just reinforced the one fact in his immediate little life: there was no more cookies in his cup.

I tried explaining about cookies being at home in the cupboard, not out here in the middle of the street, but I'm not sure if he got it. After a while he let it go but once we reached the house he started wailing for cookies. Even refused to walk up the steps. The only thing on his mind was the cookies.

Such trauma in a baby's life.