Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Lily and Ella have both started lying to us. Lily is the more frequent offender, however. They're so funny about it, though. They think they're so clever, telling us these little fibs, like there's no way we'll know. Fortunately, B and I are smarter and wileyer (is that even a word?) than they.

One night I asked Ella if she had finished clearing the table and put everything in the dishwasher. There was a pause before she said yes, so I went to take a look. Plates were all over the counter. I made her load the dishwasher and then sent her straight off to bed. She also lied one night about having brushed her teeth. I made her let me sniff her breath, which smelled of spaghetti, not toothpase, so I sent her back into the bathroom and then off to bed. Those two incidents were enough to convince Ella that we would figure her out if she lied, and she hasn't done it since.

Lily hasn't quite had the same revelation yet. She repeatedly lies about having brushed her teeth - with toothpaste - and about washing her hair and about washing her hands with soap. Again, a quick sniff test by me of B reveals the truth and she gets sent to re-do whatever it was she didn't do correctly and then she's sent to bed without stories. Yet she persists in lying to us. I just don't get it. At what point will she figure out that we catch her every time in these lies? Tonight she brushed her teeth and used toothpaste, but she used her finger rather than her toothbrush because she doesn't like the color of her toothbrush. B and I both suspected something was up, so we kept asking questions until we got to the truth of the matter. Ella's willingness to rat her sister out helped us too. So Lily got sent to bed, again, without a story after she brushed her teeth correctly.

When will she learn?