April Fools

I've never been very good at April Fools jokes.  Maybe it's because I kind of forget about it until it's actually April 1st, and by then I don't have time to pull anything off.  I made one memorable attempt exactly thirteen years ago.  I was pregnant with Emery, and I was about 32 weeks along.  I was working at a pediatrician's office and Ben was working for Franklin Covey.  I thought I'd pull the best joke ever on him.  So I called him during the day and frantically told him that my water just broke.  He started absolutely freaking out ... "Oh my gosh! ... we're going to have a baby today! ... should I meet you at the hospital or should I come and get you?" ... etc., etc., etc.  It was at some point during his "freak out" that I realized this joke wasn't that funny.  He was so excited that we were going to have the baby, and he was being so cute with me, and I felt like a total dork when I said, "April Fools!"  Then I apologized profusely for the horrible, mean trick I had played on him.  So after that failed attempt at an April Fools joke, I took a break for a few years.

Until the year I put plastic spiders in our bed ... on Ben's side.  That was actually pretty funny.  And I was quite proud of myself for my success.

Now that my kids are old enough to understand what an April Fools joke is, we decided it was time to get them.  But I didn't want to do anything that would make a mess, because I know exactly who would have to clean it up.  (Like, who in their right mind would ever put saran wrap under the toilet seat?  Yuck.  I definitely don't want to have to clean anything like that up.)  Anyway, we decided it would be funny to wait until they were asleep last night and then move them all into different beds.  You know, so when they woke up this morning they would be in the wrong bed.  The plan was to swap Luke and Sam into each others' beds, and move Emery onto the couch so he could still wake up in time for junior high. 

Well, we tried it, and as it turned out, the joke was on us.  We had successfully swapped Sam and Luke, but before we even made it downstairs to move Emery, Sam started having some crazy "night terror" and he was walking around the house all upset and scared.  By the time we calmed him down, we didn't have the heart to put him back in the wrong bed, so we quickly moved Luke back into his own bed, and then Sam went back to bed.  What a fiasco!  It would have been quite comical to have watched me and Ben trying to carry sleeping boys all over the house, get them all settled in the wrong beds, calm Sam down, and then sneakily move Luke back into his bed before Sam realized that something was up!  Once again, a failed attempt at an April Fools joke.

Maybe I'll go back to plastic spiders.