Ship of Fools

Laine the Hurricane really has not gotten much action on the blog lately which is mostly because she doesn't misbehave near as much anymore and she is smart enough to clean up and never say anything when she misses the toilet.

The Hurricane is, however, very excited about days like April Fool's Day. Honestly, I don't know why. I pretty much dropped out of elementary school thanks to St. Patrick's Day, April Fool's Day, and Opposite Day. If I met one more 3rd grader that hid a green sticker on the bottom of their socks so they could then give 10 pinches to the person who pinched them illegally, well then, then I would have probably gotten in my first fist fight. I hated those days in elementary school. Lainey on the other hand can barely sleep because she is so excited about what trickery might possibly befall her on April Fool's Day.

She had a few plans of her own this year. Her first plan was that she was going to put syrup on Romney's tooth brush and then somehow get him to brush his teeth in the morning. (I'm not sure why she felt capable of getting him to do this because I usually have to make him believe that his teeth are about to fall out until he cries and then he finally will brush his teeth.) So anyway - Laine put her plan in motion the next morning and after getting syrup pretty much EVERYWHERE in the bathroom ("Lainey! How did syrup get on top of the mirror?") she did get Romney to brush his teeth. He, of course, thought it was awesome and would like to brush his teeth with syrup every morning now. Before she went to bed, Lainey also cut out little scraps of paper to put over Romney's glasses so he wouldn't be able to see when we woke up in the morning.

Marie and I knew Lainey was desperate for us to do something to her and luckily we remembered just before we were going to bed. We decided the best trick would be something that would also benefit us so we went into her room and moved her dresser right in front of the doorway (don't worry - her door was open) [previous don't worry line added by editor to avoid visit from DCFS] so she wouldn't be able to get out of her room in the morning. We didn't want Romney to feel left out so we just stole all of his drawers and hid them, and then, since his room is at the bottom of the stairs we put all of our bean bags, exercise balls, and a laundry basket on the stairs so he wouldn't be able to get up either. (We then said a prayer that neither kid would have to go to the bathroom in the night.) Finally we changed all the clocks in the house so they said different times.

The first thing we heard in the morning was Lainey yelling from her room. "OH COME ON! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET OUT OF HERE!" (it was awesome!) Finally she figured out a way to climb over it and came into our room. Shortly there after we heard Romney yelling, "HELP!" We got them both up and then noticed the clock in the kitchen said it was after 9:00 so we realized we must be really late for school and I told Lainey we had to leave for school immediately! (there were a lot of exclamation points that morning.) Lainey was wearing these goofy pajamas for a 2 year old but she is so skinny they fit her like capris and so she thinks they are cool. We threw on her snow boots, grabbed a coat to put over her p.j.s and ran out to the car. Lainey wasn't sure what to make of all this. "Dad, are we really going to school? Dad, are you really taking me to school in my pajamas?" I think she was skeptical until we got to the end of our street and turned towards school. Then I turned into 7-11 and told her, "April Fools!" Seriously, you would have thought it was her birthday she was so happy. We bought some milk and a 12 dollar mini box of lucky charms and headed home.

When we got home we found Marie fully in the April Fool's spirit typing an email to her book club that they were all going to have to read Eclipse for April. It was pretty funny, especially because so many believed her and spent most of the day expressing their disappointment to their spouses and co-workers. (Favorite quote, "I really just expected more from Marie.") Marie was squirming uncomfortably all day. ("What if someone buys the book today? Everyone is going to know for sure that I'm kidding.") In the end she finally decided it was worth it.

It is not often that Marie and I feel like we live up to our kids' expectations. Most days are occupied by our children trying to help us understand the diverse ways that we are horrible, mean parents. Usually we are complete disappointments but this was one morning when we thought it might be possible that our kids were not completely depressed to have such loser, mean parents. Isn't it strange that we have to play big jokes and do mean things for them to think we are nice? Kids really should come with more instructions.