On the morning of April Fool's Day last year, I tried to come up with a good prank.
With really young children, it's hard to come up with a fairly innocuous prank. Three years ago I told Sierra that now that she was seven years old she was going to have to take only showers. I explained that it was a new law that had passed and that we had to follow the law or the sheriff would be by to check on us.
You can guess how well that went over. She still remembers that one and gives me a look that says "how could you!"
Oh well. Time to toss another twenty in the therapy savings account for her.
So I decided to do something less personal this time. I was scrambling some eggs and decided to toss in some food coloring and turn them green. Then I announced I would be serving ostrich eggs for breakfast.
"No way!" Sierra said.
"Way!" I said. "Look, see the color?"
"Cool!"
It would have been great if it had ended right there. But of course, it didn't. Mireya was horrified. She began crying that she didn't want ostrich eggs.
Sierra, who was happily munching away, assured her four-year-old sister that they tasted great.
Mireya was having none of it. I quickly fessed up to the food dye. If anything, that made things worse.
"You lied to me?" Mireya said, crestfallen.
We all tried to explain about April Fool's Day, but it was hopeless.
"I hate April Fool's Day!" she shouted.
After promising to not play any more tricks on her, we managed to get through the day. She even ate a little of the green eggs and Sierra managed to play an April Fool's Day joke on me. No one dared mentioned it and we focused instead on how many days until Easter.
But forgiving is not forgetting. Proving once again that four-year-olds have longer memories than anyone likes to think, she gave me a harsh look during bath time.
"You lied to me," she said, "You lied about the ostrich egg."
I sighed and mentally added another thirty bucks to the therapy fund. At this rate we won't have anything left for the college fund.
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