No Foolin'

 Oh, I'd been waiting a year or two to remember to do this trick. My friend Kimmy did this for her kids one April Fool's Day and I thought it was hilarious. Last night I finally remembered to make up a small pot of oatmeal. Dividing it into two small plastic bowls, I sat spoons in each and stuck them in the freezer overnight. Mwah ha ha...breakfast of champions: frozen oatmeal.  Above you can see a blurry image of Ani discovering that her yummy bowl of oatmeal is...frozen? What???? How can I eat this oatmeal? WHY did you do this to my oatmeal? WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?????

 She did not take it well.  She was mad.  There is a fine line with Ani between something that is funny and something that is REALLY REALLY REALLY not funny.  Eliza, on the other hand, found it very funny and thought all day about a joke to play on her papa tonight:  slipping Cinderella into the dvd player instead of the family movie of choice this evening, How Art Made The World. Pretty funny. 

Ani was able to laugh about it later, sort of laughing at how ridiculous her mom was and sort of laughing at herself, but it took her a long while to get there.  I was glad I had abandoned any attempts to pull anything over on the group at farm school, who are mostly around Ani's age.  I think perception is still too literal at 5 and 6 - that sophistication of seeing more than what is in front of you must develop around 7, though I'm sure as with anything else, it depends on the kid.  She also thought that she would have liked to be in on the joke, just having to keep a secret, but even that, she then thought, was really too much.  I think on another day, maybe if she were feeling solidarity with Eliza, and experienced the joke as a team, she could have handled it, but what I forgot in my brilliant moment of planning was that Ani finds it really painful to be embarrassed. She even has a hard time seeing others feel embarrassment; watching an episode of I Love Lucy sends Eliza into hysterics, while Ani cringes and covers her ears and buries her face in the couch, anticipating Lucy getting caught doing something wrong.

Sigh. I went from feeling so pleased with myself (chortle chortle) to feeling like such a heel (Bad Mom!!!). It did help to hear Eliza telling everyone today about the goofy thing her mom did.  She has a silly streak a mile wide...the other day she saw me writing on some hard-boiled eggs, to make sure anyone looking in the fridge would realize they weren't raw.  I'd gotten bored with "HB" so was making some drawings.  She asked if she could take over, and this is what I found the next time I went looking for a hard-boiled egg...

Me, as egg.