Last April Fool’s day was on a Sunday. Using our powers for evil, we woke up the kids and went through the morning pretending it was Monday. Our poor daughter kept shaking her head sadly and saying, “I was sure it was still the weekend!” We packed lunches and tried to move with that clipped urgency of a school morning. In the car, about a block from school, we stopped and sprung the old “April Fools!” on them and told them we were heading to Traintown, up in Sonoma. It’s an awesome place to go with small kids. I’ll always remember our daughter’s old-school reaction; she slapped her leg and cried, “You GOT me!” in a way that really ought to have been followed by a “Golly!”
We tried to think of something fun for this year, even though I was sure the kids would be onto us the whole way. I put gummy worms in their snack apples in the morning, but other than that we played it pretty cool. Then after school was out, I told the kids that our car had to go up to the dealership to get a part fixed that evening. I tried to act as though the whole thing was a nuisance but we’d do the best we could. We packed some snacks and books and toys into a bag and set off as soon as their dad got home.
A block before the dealership, we turned down a side street and into the parking lot of a bowling alley, where the darndest thing happened – we pulled into a space, and some of our best friends were in the next car over! We hopped out and our friend Amy said, “Hey – what are you guys doing here? Are you going to see your mortgage broker too?”
It took the kids a few minutes to catch up. But when they did, we all went into the bowling alley, pretty excited to be out on a school night. That’s when we ALL got punk’d.
League night.
You’d think I would have thought of that, but no. So, we played some video games and then went out to dinner together. All in all a pretty great start to the month.