April's Fool

I have a vision of myself as being a really fun, hip and on-the-ball mom. We all know the truth, though don't we. Sigh. I can barely keep my family fed and dressed! And let's just leave the house cleaning out of this. Well, on Wednesday I was taking a moment to catch of glimpse of "Good Things Utah," a local television program geared basically for the stay home mom. They had a segment on April Fools jokes to play on your kids at meal times and I was totally entranced. Making dessert look like the main course (fish sticks made of cookies/peanut butter/cracker crumbs) and the other way around (ice cream sundaes made of mashed potatoes), making mini desserts (frost cheerios like donuts), fake-out cakes (frost a roll of toilet paper), and the list went on. I figured that I could muster enough energy to pull together a couple of April Fools jokes for the kids.

For Stomper I packed his real lunch in a paper bag at the bottom of his lunch box and placed on top of it baggies of plastic food. I left him a note assuring him that actual food could be found below. Of course, the joke ended up being on me when his water bottle malfunctioned and he ended up with a dripping lunch bag instead, but he assured me that he and his classmates were rather tickled by the joke. For dinner Bitty and I joined forces to create dessert for dinner - we concocted cupcakes out of their favorite meatloaf topped with mashed potatoes. Bitty was especially thrilled that we even topped them with real sprinkles. She couldn't wait to invite Stomper in to dinner, though he was doubtful that his mean-ole-mom actually made a dessert for supper. They did get a kick out it, though. More importantly they ate it. Worth the effort!