April Fools!

April fools is one of my favorite days because I love to play little tricks on the kids.  In a world where so much is serious and we have a hard time taking time to be silly, it is the one day where mom is silly for sure.

While the world is not really in a funny light hearted place, I debated about not doing anything for this day but then thought twice.  This is a day my kids look forward to now.  They have been talking for weeks speculating about what prank I am going to pull on them and how they are definitely not going to fall for any of my shenanigan's.  I smile and tell them I bet I'll prove them wrong.

The minute the kids woke up yesterday, they announced it was finally April 1st and they were on to me.  I played along and persuaded them I wasn't going to do anything because I was too busy.  Michael had been playing for a while that he had come up with a whole list of pranks and was going to be busy during the night of March 30th setting everything up to trick us.

In playing along with his game, I helped "set him up"  I pulled all the cereal from the shelves and hid them in various places.... under the church pew and in the oven.  I also took the foot spa (sitting on the counter for our planned April 1st, home spa day, and I filled it with cereal.  And then I waited...

As the morning routine went on Madelyn was the first to notice the cereal under the pew and she said, "Mom look the Easter Bunny put our cereal under the pew!"  Lately the Easter Bunny has been very busy doing things... when St. Patrick stopped by for St. Patrick's day, Madelyn was sure it was the Easter Bunny who had left her all the coins.  And she was convinced yesterday's fun was to be assigned to the bunny himself again.

When the big kids came running to see the cereal, I said, "Okay boys which one of you did this?"  To which they looked at each other, pointed fingers at one another and shouted, "NOT ME, it was (insert name of other brother)"  I, in my motherly "you're in trouble" tone said, "Michael it must have been you... you've been talking about pranking us for several days."  Determined to prove his innocence eh said, "Mom, look I can tell you with a straight face I'm not lying, I didn't..." and then he burst out laughing.  He begged, "Mom, really it had to be Gabriel, it wasn't me."  I turned to Gabriel and said, "So you're the prankster this morning huh?"  To which he immediately got wide-eyed and insisted it wasn't him!

After a few minutes and after some curious asking I started recording the kids and Michael caught on saying, "This is all mom!  It was then I let them in on the secret... yep mom strikes again!"

The other prank I pulled on the kids was that I showed them a picture of the governor declaring that the students would have to retake the same grade next year.  I acted surprised when I found the photo on my phone and even though we had just been discussing the fact that it was April fools, the boys fell for it hook, line and sinker.  Immediately Michael said, "That's it, we have to move out of state immediately!"  Gabe was more shocked and speechless but just kept repeating no no no over and over again!  I said, "ask Dad!" so Gabe took off running up the stairs, completely interrupting Dad's meeting to ask, "Am I going to have to redo 8th grade?"  Jarrett, obviously being interrupted in the middle of a meeting said, "April fools!" to which Gabe came out of the office with a big smirk and said, "April fools!"  It was so funny, I smile now even writing about it.

As the day went on we laughed about all the past April fools pranks and the kids insisted one of these days they are going to strike back!

Until then, this mom looks forward to another April Fool's day fun next time,
Angie

PS: Enjoy a little April Fool's joke from Madelyn!