_Children are smarter and shiftier than we think they are. They have mouths and minds that can leave you floored. They are in tune but also plotting and they are watching... EVERY. MOVE. WE MAKE. Be careful of what you say and do! For real. _

Redditor **maxxxl **_asked parents of Reddit _Parents of Reddit, what was the best lie that your child has told you, that you knew was a lie, but wanted to see how big of a hole they would put themselves in? **The answers? Insightful to say the least.

I SEE EVERYTHING!!

I opened the kitchen trash can to find a perfectly functional stapler sitting at the top. Turned to my family in surprise and asked who put it there.

5 year old: It wasn't me. Husband: I didn't do it.

So, we all turn to look at my 3 year old daughter, the only remaining suspect.

3 year old: [after long pause] It was you. I saw you.

We purchased a used Nintendo DS from eBay and it had a bunch of games with it, a number of them were duplicates. A friend of the family has two children and we promised to bring the games for them next time we came over if they behaved well enough by then and their mother approved.

A few weeks had passed and we hadn't managed to head over to their house yet. Right after we finally set up a playdate, my wife received a text message from the mothers phone, asking us to bring the DS games with us. There were some spelling mistakes and inconsistencies with the text and my wife asked who is this.

The response back? Their eight year old had snuck his moms phone to get us to bring the games and didn't think to respond with his mothers name.

When I was little and I wanted to stay home from school I would act sick. Rubbed my forehead before my mom checked it. You know, classic kid. One time, to lay it on extra thick, I added that I have a headache as well. So she, probably not buying it but playing along, offers me a baby aspirin. So, before I take it, totally freaking out about the dangers of medicine due to a crude TV show-derived understanding of overdosing, I ask her, in my most nonchalant way, "Will people who don't have a headache get sick if they take this?"

When I was 4 (1955) I was at a kindergarten concert. We all dressed as little flowers. Looked so cute. I just had to stand about looking cute. Some of the better behaved children got a bigger role and had to say and do things. The teachers put chalk marks on the stage floor so these wonderfully well behaved children knew where to stand.

I was bored out of my mind, although I might have looked cute with my daffodil crepe paper headdress. I wasn't a naturally cute child. So I slowly and casually moved around the stage from chalk mark to chalk mark rubbing them out with the toe of my dap while still looking cute.It was mayhem with kids running around looking for their mark. My mother told me she watched me doing it and knew exactly what I was up to. Said it was one of the best school concerts she'd been to.

When the teacher approached us after the show and asked what I'd been doing my mother said 'she had a really bad itch on her toe and didn't want to take her dap off to scratch it, so tried to rub it on the floor for some relief'. My mother is dead now but she was a real trooper and often came through for me when I messed up. My children and grandchildren are all well behaved, not a spark of rebellion in any of them. Nice people but, a bit boring sometimes.

Found a scratch down the side of our (relatively new) van. We had been having vandals in the neighborhood, so we thought someone had keyed it. We then explained what 'getting keyed' was to our 6-year old.

After he said, "or it could have been from a bike handle!"

Just walking past my four year old son, who was quietly playing by himself.

He looks up at me and smiles, "Nothing's wrong."

He's only two, so he hasn't told any big ones yet. But if I ask him if he did something and he wants to avoid answering, he says "I'm sick" and goes and lays down.

3 year old was sat on front of the tv watching cartoons. I went up to put some laundry away and when I came back down he had no pants or trousers on. There was a little puddle of urine on the floor behind him and his underwear and trousers were on the floor on front of the washing machine.

I asked him who had urinated on the floor. He replied 'it was daddy'.

When I said that daddy was at work, he told me that daddy had 'came home, wee'd on the floor and then left again'.

'In the few minutes that I've been upstairs?'

*shaking his head and rolling his eyes in disapproval.

'yes'.

Not my kid, but my little sister. When she was in maybe first grade our mom got a call from the school requesting a meeting. She shows up and the teacher says "I just wanted you to see this in person". And with a look of disgust slaps down a piece of paper in front of her. In my sister's first grade hand writing was a note that read: please excuse sister von Manfred from doing her homework. I was too stupid to help her. Signed, mom.

Me: your room is a mess! You are gonna have to clean it tomorrow.

_4yr old: yeah, I don't know what happened. _

Me: I know what happened, you didn't put your toys back and messed up your room.

4yr old (completely deadpan): there was a stranger in your house.

When my son was about 4, I spent a few weeks with him and his sister at a summer camp. We lived on the first floor of a dorm while we were there. in his little mind, everyone else who lived there had better food than I was serving - to be fair, it's hard to cook a good dinner for 3 in a dorm room. Anyway, I fed the kids and was preparing to leave for the evening, and lo and behold, my son was gone. I went up and down all the halls, asking everyone where he was. I finally found him on the fourth floor, happily eating dinner with another family. They said he told them I had already left, and did not give him dinner before I "left". He had evidently gone from room to room, checking out what everyone was having, and then lying his way into the best of the lot.

I was making dinner and my 3 year old let out a blood curdling scream, so I ran to the den where him and my 5 year old daughter were playing. He's holding his leg so I pry his little fingers off and there's a fresh set of teeth marks. I look at my daughter and ask what happened. Straight face, calm voice "I was just laying here and bubba's leg FELL into my open mouth, then he started crying". I act shocked and tell her she must have "rock teeth" and we better get her to the dentist right after dinner. Her eyes got huge, then I got the boy an ice pack and went on making dinner. We finish eating I tell her to grab her shoes and I get my keys. It was about 2 seconds after I started the car when I got the truth, he wouldn't give her the remote and started to run away she tripped him and bit his leg. She got grounded from tv for a weekend.

When I was 7.... back when answering machines existed....

My mom called and i didn't feel like talking so I picked up the phone and said "hello, please leave your message at the beep. BEEP!"

I was totally convinced this would fool her.

_It wasn't my child but, when my brother was about 6 he answered the home phone (Back when there were still cords and before cell phones). My aunt was there inner calling and asked him, "Can I speak to your dad?" He smirked and deepened his voice to say, "This is my dad." He thought he was being so sly. It's still a family home thing today, and he's 30 now. _

I just told my husband the thread I was reading and his story is when he was a young kid on Christmas night he would take all the presents "Santa" brought him and put them in bed with him. When his parents got up and asked him about it he would reply "Santa put them there". They couldn't fess up without admitting Santa wasn't real to him and his two sisters.

I have two kids and neither of them have gotten themselves so cold busted as I did when I was seven: my mom would always be yelling at me for dilly dallying and coming close to missing my bus, which picked me up right out at the end of my driveway. Well, one day my mom was doing her normal yelling and trying to get me to hurry. I finally went outside and the bus never came so I figured I missed it and my mom would be super mad. So I told her I saw it at the end of the driveway and ran towards it screaming for it to wait but it just drove off. So my mom was really mad and drove me to school, only to realize when we got there that it was a school holiday!

My 4 year old told me "Daddy let me explain it to you. I have Cheetah in my DNA" when I asked why she was purring. She ran with the lie for weeks until we told her Cheetahs can't eat ice cream or chocolate, she confessed to lying and how she would never lie again because it's too stressful.

TIL: there are people who identify as Cheetah.

When my son was 6 he came home from school with a tear in his new pants. I asked him what happened and he said he fell in the playground and ripped them. I said, oh no how is your knee? He said, it was sore but the bruise went away. He was actually limping a little too. So I responded, gee it looks to me like your pants were cut with a pair scissors. He looked at me completely confused and said, how did YOU know?

Wild guess, not to mention it was a nice clean slice. Tried really hard not to laugh.

We were toilet training and my 3 year old boy had accidentally wet the bed. He was clearly upset about it so I decided to give him an out.

Me: Oh no! Did I do wee in the bed?!

He jumped at the chance to blame me.

Kid: Yeah, it was you. You did wee in my pants.. :/

My son was about seven. After finally getting his attention I asked "Didn't you hear me calling you?"

He said "Not the first two times."