Ever since watching the second Harry Potter movie a week before, Julia has been afraid
to use the bathroom “because Chamber of Secrets.” I guess she thinks a secret passage
will open and a giant snake will emerge and petrify her. As an April Fool’s day prank,
Mark suggests writing on the bathroom mirror the same words mysteriously etched on the
wall in the movie. I also throw a bunch of plastic snakes on the floor. I worry a little that we
could traumatize her but instead when she sees the bathroom she laughs. (She also gets
over her fear in the following days so maybe this helped?) James declares that one of his
pranks this year is to prank my pranks so he takes a window marker and changes what I
wrote to “The chamberpot of secrets…”
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| Message written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. |
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| Snakes on the rug. Sadly our realistic rubber snake which resided in the branches of our peach tree to scare away animals, got thrown out with said peach tree when it was cut down. |
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| Harry Potter super fan Julia's happy about the change to the mirror when she sees it for the first time. |
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| James pranks my prank by changing it to read "The chamberpot..." |
I put a few drops of food coloring in their bowls and then cover the drops with cereal. It
all looks as normal until I add milk. They’re no fools and know it’s food coloring. I’m
pretty sure Julia rolled her eyes and said, “Mom-mmmmmmmmeeeeeee!”
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| Julia looks at me with revulsion. (But she's kidding.) |
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| Julia's milk turns pink. |
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| James's milk turns blue. |
James scurries about the house setting up his pranks. He puts socks on all the
doorknobs, swaps the identical TV remotes into opposite rooms, puts the empty
egg carton in the fridge in the hopes someone will open it, and adds sunglasses
to inanimate objects. He also decorates Julia’s dresser by hanging scissors and
necklaces from all the drawer pulls.
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| James's prank. He covered all the doorknobs with socks. |
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| Extra egg carton in the fridge. (Yes, we go through a lot of eggs.) |
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| James added sunglasses to the remote. |
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| James hung scissors, necklaces, and an egg carton from the pulls of Julia's dresser. |
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| Finished product |
I take the cream out of one of James’s Oreos and replace it with toothpaste. When
James eats his cookie but doesn’t immediately notice a difference I ask if it tastes
okay. He asks, “Why?” and looks a little worried. I tell him what I did. “Should I spit
it out?” he asks. “I pretty much swallowed it.” I tell him not to worry about it and
give him another Oreo to make up for it. He notices right away that this one smells
like mint. Oops! Gave him the wrong one before!
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| Close-up of toothpaste filling inside Oreo |
Later I give Julia her vanilla Oreo while James watches amused since now he’s in on the prank. She takes a tiny bite - not because she’s suspicious, that’s just now she eats - and immediately knows something’s off.
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| Oreos with toothpaste filling |
A week ago I bought fresh squeezed O.J. so the kids would be used to drinking it every day and not be suspicious when I pulled it out for them to drink for the first time on April Fool’s Day. Except tonight I replace the O.J. with water mixed with mac n cheese powder. Right away they realize it doesn’t taste right. To make up for it I of course replace it with the real O.J.
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| How 'bout some nice refreshing O.J.?... |
After dinner I hear James talking loudly to his stuffed dogs “Wait, what are you doing?” “Goldie! No!” I come in and discover that his stuffed dogs had apparently all raided the costume box and are now wearing hats or wigs.
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| James's dogs raided the costume bin. |
Epilogue: I didn’t think it was that mean to give the kids toothpaste Oreos and mac n
Barbara) the day before and we willingly ate much worse tasting Jelly Bellies than
that. Flavors included spoiled milk, toothpaste, booger, rotten egg, moldy cheese,
and vomit. (For the record, the toothpaste flavor was the only one I didn’t spit out
because it didn’t taste that bad.) Mark strongly disapproved of my food-switching
shenanigans because he thought it encourages the kids to tamper with food. He
definitely has a point and I’ve decided not to do it again in the future, but I think this
one time was probably fine. (Unless they tamper with my food next April Fool’s. Then
no.)
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| Bean Boozled Jelly Bellies. Will you eat a good one or a terrible one? |
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