Regarding the missing phone … I was there when we believe that the phone went missing. It is not a question of lying or ommission. It is simply a question of know one really being sure exactly when and how the phone went missing. Though the sound of something falling off the roof of the car as we left a rest stop is a clue that this may have been when the phone went missing (though at the time we thought it was a drink) – since we never saw it after that. No one is really sure if it was the teen misplacing the phone or the Dad misplacing the phone (or even one of the siblings). So, the teen isn’t being penalized for the missing phone.

It isn’t going to be the spelling lesson she remembers. She might remember the cranberry muffin recipe that I taught her and my grandmother taught me, but I doubt it.

What she is likely to remember is the stuff I’m not even aware I’m teaching her. She can already rattle off my stock Starbucks order. She probably also knows that some of the people who spend the night aren’t relatives.

Yesterday, you spoke of your son’s missing cell phone. As an aside you mentioned that your husband might have lost it but wasn’t confessing.

I have no way of knowing where the cell phone really went but I wonder if there is a lesson on truth buried there somewhere?

As for me, all my lies are lies of omission. Sometimes what we don’t say are the real whoppers.

—Isis