Although I write memoirs and a zine called "Reality Mom," I never claim that all of my stories are 100-percent true. Or as friends say, “Maybe it’s reality according to you, but that’s not how I remember it.”

So when my 4-year-old daughter started to tell tall tales, I wasn’t too concerned. I’m all for creative freedom and figured exaggerating was part of being 4 (or 40).

Soon enough, her tall tales no longer resembled creative expression, they were just outright lies.

Me: “Did you brush your teeth?”

Her: “Yes.”

One glance at my son shaking his head and another glance at the dry toothbrush told me otherwise. Not wanting to call her a liar, I tried to give her an out and suggested maybe she thought she brushed her teeth this morning, but in actuality that happened last night.

“No,” she said. “I brushed them this morning before I went downstairs to play ponies. I remember, really.”

Just as I was about to tell her she was wrong, I recalled my son went through a phase of not quite truth telling as well. And, a small miracle occurred where I not only remembered what I did about the situation, I remembered that it worked.

I stopped asking questions I knew the answer to. Meaning, when I saw a dry toothbrush I’d say, “Hey, you need to brush your teeth before we leave,” rather than asking him if he already did so and therefore giving him the opportunity to lie to me.

I also employed my usual tactic, which was to ignore it and trust that he would grow out of it more quickly if I didn’t make a big stink about it.

This worked for a while with my daughter, but then the tall tales came back with an increase in absurdity as well as frequency. One yarn was about how an almost-3-year-old at her school could read and count to 1,000. I deemed this unlikely but didn’t protest until she added that the girl lived in Singapore yet attended school in Seattle.

“That’s impossible honey," I said. "Singapore is very far away. I think Sarah was born in Singapore, but she doesn’t live there now.”

“Yes she does, she told me.”

“That’s not true.” A brief lesson from me on the difference between fiction and nonfiction followed. “And, it’s all right to make up stories, but you need to make sure that you understand the difference and that you let people know the story is made up.”

She nodded in agreement, I breathed a sigh of relief, and as usual, thought the topic was cleared up. A couple of days later, she announced that she remembered cutting her own umbilical cord when she was born.

“That’s impossible!” I laughed.

“No, I remember. I came out of you and screamed and screamed and then laid on your belly for a while. Once I was warm, I cut the cord with really sharp scissors.”

She was able to accurately describe her phenomenal birth scenario so well, which only took two hours and almost occurred before the midwife arrived, that I almost found myself believing her. If a baby can be born in two hours, lift her head one minute after birth, and then scream nonstop for days on end, that would be the baby that could cut her own umbilical cord.

It wasn’t until I saw the twinkle in her eye that I realized she may have had me fooled, but she didn’t really believe the story herself. She was merely enjoying the telling of it.

My son, the voice of reason in our household, said, “I thought papa cut our cords.”

“Hmmm,” I said as I winked at my daughter. “I can’t remember exactly. Let’s call him and see who remembers it most clearly.”

Corbin Lewars (www.corbinlewars.com) is a writing mentor, the founder of Reality Mom (www.realitymomzine.blogspot.com) and author of "Creating a Life" (Catalyst Book Press, 2010) and the forthcoming "After Glow." She will be teaching a memoir writing class in Ballard starting in September. Contact her for details.