To live a life without mistakes is impossible, but trying to cover up those mistakes, as my daughter found out this week, only makes the initial mistake worse.

She loves accessories, bows, flowers, pretty things for her hair.  I’m far less girlie, but over the years my sisters have given her many fun, and fancy things.  This week one of the flowers my sister made for her popped off its barrette.  Rather than tell me, my daughter decided to fix the problem herself.  Except, the lid on the super glue bottle she found was stuck.  Again, rather than ask for help she took a knife and tried to force the lid off.  Oh it finally came off, along with the entire top, spilling super glue all over the bathroom counter and sink.  A big mistake for sure, but too scared to tell me what she had done, she wiped at the glue with toilet paper and left the bathroom hoping I wouldn’t notice.

Dried super glue is pretty hard to miss.  I walked into the bathroom thinking what had the kids been doing with the toothpaste, but this toothpaste wouldn’t come off no matter how hard I scrubbed.  Of course I start an inquisition, but every one of my children said, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”  The stuff had magically appeared all by itself.  As you can imagine, after spending more than an hour scrubbing at the hard stuff that won’t come off, I’m pretty ticked off.  In walks my daughter and finally admits what she had done.

If this isn’t the perfect example of how a mistake is made so much worse by trying to conceal it, I don’t know what is.  Hopefully, my daughter has learned her lesson as well as anyone who reads this.  Hiding our mistakes doesn’t make them go away.  They are always found out–eventually.