Coffee Break with Liz and Kate

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Tomorrow is a BIG holiday for me.  Are you now racking your brain with thoughts of “Wait a minute!  Tomorrow is a holiday? What did I forget? Did Easter sneak up on me?  Am I totally unprepared with the you-know -what from the you-know-who?”  Rest at ease. It’s not a big holiday to most of the mature adult world…just me and a few other crazies who save up their usually well hidden, immature instincts for a day such as this.

It’s April Fools Day tomorrow.  I am still undecided as to my prank for this year, but I am reminded of a prank from the past, 11 years ago to be exact.  At that time, I had 6 kids ( ages: 14, 12, 10, 9, 9 & 3)  The oldest five kids had survived the ordeal of learning how to feed/dress/bath/diaper/and generally care for the “baby” who was now a big potty trained 3 year-old.  The kids would occasionally ( and by occasionally…I mean frequently) say things to me like “You’re not having any more kids, right?” and “You’re too old to have another baby, right?” to which I would promptly reply, “Are you nuts? Of course, I’m not gonna have another baby.”

Sooooo, I thought, “How funny will it be to prank the family with a fake pregnancy.”  I gathered up some old baby stuff – a bottle, a diaper, a pacifier, some wipes – and put them in a brown paper bag.  I called the whole gang to the living room after dinner and told them I wanted to talk to them about something important.

I was prepared for the standard eye-roll which I knew was coming, because these “important talks”  usually consisted of me droning on about “important” topics like how I needed more help around the house and how I’m not your slave…you know, standard mom catch phrases.  After my preliminary warm-up speech, I could see they were already drifting off, so I pulled out my bag of tricks.

The crinkling of the paper bag, snapped them back to reality, as I almost never (and by almost never…I mean never) have visual aids for these talks.  I told them I had something important to discuss with them and that they were going to try to guess what it was by looking at the stuff I had in the bag.  I pulled the items out  one by one, savoring the looks of horror that came to my kids faces as it slowly dawned on them what I was trying to tell them.  They were shocked…flabbergasted… appalled… especially the oldest two who did have at least some concept of the socially acceptable age for child bearing.  And to them I was waaaay beyond that age.

I felt almost faint with giddiness at the success of this prank.  It was by far the best I had ever pulled.  You might even say I was gloating.  Putting it mildly, they were NOT amused.  Not even the tiniest bit, well except for the 3 year-old, who looked at that long lost pacifier with a greedy gleam in her eye.

Fast forward three months…

Imagine my kids surprise when I pulled out that same paper bag of old baby stuff and tried to pull the  trick on them again…only this time it wasn’t April Fool’s Day and this wasn’t a prank…I was really pregnant.

Here’s my advice as you plan your April Fool’s Day pranks for this year – be careful what you prank about because you never know when it’s going to come back and bite you in the butt.

~Kate

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