April Foolery

Our children are far too suspicious and cynical now but back when they were young and innocent, we played some pret-ty good tricks on them. 

(Maybe that's why they're far too suspicious and cynical now.)

One year on April Fool's day, I made some carrot bread in a loaf pan.  I dyed some whipped cream slightly yellow so it looked like mashed potatoes.  I had caramel "gravy."

I had also made a meat loaf and "frosted" it with mashed potatoes.

I arranged the carrot bread and whipped cream to look like meat loaf and potatoes and I called everyone to dinner.  Braeden was probably five.  He came racing in, excited about the meat loaf.  He took a bite of the carrot bread and his face crumpled and he burst into tears.

"But I thought it was meat loaf!" he wailed.

I brought the frosted meat loaf cake from the kitchen to show him that all wasn't lost. (I hadn't anticipated the tears!)

Perhaps we should have hung up our April Fool's hats, but we didn't.  The next year we put our children to bed hours early.

"We haven't had dinner," they said.

"Yes we did," we said.

We argued awhile back and forth and we told them to go to bed.  They were little so they complied.  They were about this age so I feel a little guilty about tricking them but like I said, they got too smart when they were older...

So we put our protesting cherubs to bed and then I made pancakes and eggs and sausage and all their favorite breakfast food.

Adam went to "wake them up" for breakfast.

Braeden said, "We were praying you would come and get us."

The next year I told them that since I was homeschooling them, they needed to get shots.  I told them that shots were part of school.

They were fidgety and nervous and not wanting shots.  I took them to "the doctor" but "the doctor" ended up being The Children's Museum.

I think that was about the time it was getting harder and harder to trick them.  We involved them in the tricks after that.

We made grilled cheese sandwiches that were really pound cake, toasted with orange frosting in between.

The next year we made chicken not pies.  Inside a baked pie shell we put vanilla pudding with Starburst candy shaped to look like vegetables and bananas sliced to look like chicken.

Another year we gave them each a menu and they had to pick items that may or may not work together.

For example, jell-o and green beans and no utensils.

We haven't really done many tricks lately.  It could be because we're busy or too tired to come up with anything clever.

It could be that it's really not as much fun when you can no longer torture trick your children.

I would like to point out that I was not home when Adam did that to Mark with the unsettling milk jug turned bottle.