Happy April Fools' Recovery Day

When I was a kid I remember plotting April Fools' Day pranks on my dad for weeks leading up to the big day. His birthday is April 4 and for some reason I thought the fact that it was so close to April Fools' made it appropriate to focus all my efforts of trickery on him. Of course I didn't have Buzzfeed to search for prank ideas but pure creativity. One of the best pranks I remember pulling relied on my dad's fear of spiders.

He can't stand them.

Not in an, "Eww a spider!" then continue-on-your-way kind of despise, but in a "Get me out of the house, there's a spider!" kind of way.

I was also into crafts as a kid and had loads of supplies including those bumpy pipe cleaners. Growing up in Ohio spiders were a way of life especially present in our basement and I decided to ball up a fuzzy black pipe cleaner to resemble a spider and wait for my dad to be in the basement ironing to surprise him.

It worked out perfectly! While he was focused on his ironing (my dad is quite the ironer, mind you) I calmly wandered down to the basement appeared in the door chatting for a minute threw down the pipe cleaner where he couldn't see and yelled out, "Dad, a spider!"

Never in my life have a seen a man jump so high! I'm lucky he didn't burn himself with the iron. 

I've since taken to pranking Mr. Lovebird but this year gave him a break since last year's prank was so gross. Nia's now showing an interest in jokes and while we plotted a good one to pull on Uka she didn't wake up early enough to pull it off.

She was going to take her Trader Joe's stickers and put them over his eyes while he slept. Here she is practicing on herself:

Uka knew we were plotting something during our post bedtime ritual stories and would walk by the nursery the past couple weeks telling us, "You better not do anything to me!" Well when Nia woke up too late to execute her prank I told Uka not to mention that it was April Fools' Day and to let it slide as she'd be upset. Two minutes into waking up I thought she was more focused on getting her daily yogurt for breakfast, but instead demanded to know what day it was. I cringed from the other room when she shouted, "Is it April Fools'?" When Uka cautiously answered yes, rage ensued!

I tried hard not to laugh and told her we could plot something for after school, but none of the ideas I offered were accepted.

4 1/2 year olds are hard to please, but I convinced her to try again next year.

How was your April Fools' Day? Did you fall for any pranks? Most seem to be online (like this one I almost fell for), but I like the old fashioned ones the best.