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| Romyn's April Fool's Face |
This week was April Fool’s Day,
and Romyn has been looking forward to it for ages now. He’s loudly been
planning bad pranks to play on the family, and we’ve had a lot of talks about
the differences between fun pranks and those that are destructive or mean. Now,
Romyn has a really amazing memory…. if not slightly selective. He may have
trouble “remembering” not to talk with food in his mouth, but he can recount details
of days from years ago. As April 1st approached he’d been recalling past
pranks, like the time Daddy stuffed his shoes full of paper, and sneaking fake
spiders into my bed. I realized that
between all his memories, he was leaving out last April Fool’s.
“Romyn….what about last year? Do
you remember the April Fool’s prank I played on you while Daddy was away?”
Now that it’s April, Eric has officially
been home from his last deployment a year, the whole year before that he served
in Afghanistan. As a family we just refer to this period as “the time Daddy was
away.”
“Uhhh, no. I don’t know, wasn’t
that when Daddy put paper in my shoes?”
“No, if Daddy was still away he
could not have put paper in your shoes.”
“OH! It was when Daddy jumped out
of the box.” (This was how he surprised the boys when he returned from
deployment.)
“No, that was….Oh, that was the end
of March last year. I guess Daddy was here for April Fools, but he probably had
to spend the day in processing. (I realize he has been home a year now, and
soooo much on his honey-do-list is still unfinished, I mentally remind myself
to nag.) Ok, so Daddy got home, he jumped out of the box and surprised you, and
then it was April Fools, and I played a big prank on you while Daddy was at
work. Do you remember?”
“No.”
“You guys had dirt cake for
breakfast!”
“Oh… yes, now I sort of remember.”
Hrm. I actually thought the dirt
for breakfast prank would have been more traumatizing for the boys. At the
time, you would have thought neither of them could have survived such a thing. It
still breaks my heart to remember Baelin so pitifully telling me “But Momma!
This isn’t food!” Today, they barely even recall it! Of course, realizing that
Eric had indeed been home-ish for that April Fool’s meant that the shoe and
paper prank he had played on Romyn had been a year earlier. I can’t remember
what pranks were played the year Eric was away! I am positive I pranked, I always
do…and I find it really interesting my little memory wiz doesn’t either. (Oh
gosh…maybe I didn’t!) A year post deployment
and it is strange to see how different Romyn’s memories are of “the time Daddy
was away” and the years on either side of it. It is true that year was rough,
all deployments are, but I still have a lot of happy memories of my boys from
that time. They were still little, it was the end of Baelin’s babyhood, and the
last year before Romyn started school, so I tried very hard to embrace that
time, and stay busy. Today I was a little shocked to find, while flipping back
through my journal, that I wrote very little during the deployment, next to
nothing in fact! I could also find no record of the missing April Fool’s Day. Maybe
subconsciously the boys and I would rather just forget the whole year without
Daddy ever happened. Maybe it was a much harder time than I chose to remember.
I asked Eric if he recalled me
telling him over the phone what I might have done that April 1st he
was deployed. He couldn’t, but he did remember the boys telling him about the
dirt cake for breakfast after that first day of in processing. I mentioned all
Romyn remembered was him popping out of the box, and maybe that exciting incident
had outshined any other which happened following it. I then remembered how the
boys woke up so excited the morning following Eric’s return and how disappointed
they were to find he was at work. They waited the whole day by the window. Yah…
I guess dirt cake could not compare to Daddy’s homecoming.
And now…. Happier Memories from
this Year’s April Pranking-
As I mentioned, Romyn had been
planning his pranks for over a week, and most everything that he suggested was destructive
or mean. (I’m going to knock everything over on its side! I’m going to pinch my
brother’s butt! I’m going to pull your mouse out of your computer so it doesn’t
work! I am going to pretend I’ve gone deaf so I can’t hear anything you say!) I
eventually put my foot down and told him all pranks had to be done in cahoots
with a grownup, and by grownup I meant Daddy, because I was already tired of prank
planning.
The morning of the first as I get
out of bed I hear the pitter patter of
little feet in the hallway and realize I
was not awaken early on my sleep-in-day but any squealing boys, so I wonder if
all the balloons I taped over the boy’s bedroom doors had been a flop. A
swooshing sound notifies me that the child sneaking in the hallway has slipped
something under my door, I groggily scoop it up to see it is a brightly colored
rainbow… sad face. Romyn can be a bit dramatic, so perhaps he did not enjoy the
balloons blocking his door after all. Opening the door I find he’s still
crouched there in the hall ready to jump up and shriek “APRIL FOOOOOOOOOLS!” (I
need some coffee.)
“Good morning Romyn.”
“Good April Fools.”
“Did I miss the prank?”
“You have it in your hand…. see,
you think I am sad. But I am not, I am happy because it is April Fools,
APRRRRRRIIIIILLLL FOOOOOOOOOOLS!”
“I get it now.”
“Come downstairs! Now! Daddy and
I made you breakfast!”
“Now?”
“NOOOOWWW!”
Walking down the stairs I realize
the first prank of April, and obviously the first Romyn has devised on his own,
felt a little like hate mail. Rainbow
hate mail. Well, at least he didn’t smash my computer. (I think.) Romyn drags
me into the kitchen, where I see two very, very, soggy bowls of cereal. Really
soggy, like, I might gag, soggy.
“Daddy and I made you breakfast,
and you get to pick which cereal you want, alphabets or rice crispies!”
“Is that what that is? They both
look the same.”
“PICK!”
I glance at Eric, and shake my
head to say I might not even be able to pretend this, but get no help, so
I just pick crispies.
“I’ll take it to the table for
you mom. GO!”
I join Baelin at the table,
thinking I should’ve turned on my coffee pot, and getting my game face ready.
Should I be horrified? Shocked? Or just play dumb?
“Hi B. Romyn made me some cereal
too…… ooooohhhh nooooo, what’s happened to my cereal!?” (I went with dumb, because I
was too tired to win any Oscars.)
(Cue manical laughter from Romyn,
and a look of pity from Baelin. Turns out he doesn’t take kindly to people
messing with his breakfast. I can sympathize with that.)
“It’s FROZEN! Daddy tricked
Baelin and me and I saved it for you!”
(Yum, reused pranks.)
“Well I guess since I can’t eat
cereal I’ll just get us all some juice… does that sound good Baelin?”
“Yah!” (Cue Mommy’s prank, the
classic Jell-O “Juice” Glass. Much fun
and laughs are had by all. Baelin doesn’t care for people messing with his
juice either, and spent the longest trying to get the Jell-O up his straw, but
forgives me when he realized he gets Jell-O. Honestly, Baelin is sort of
confused by the whole Fool’s Day business.)
Romyn also had a great time
watching me peal tape off the bottom of my computer mouse, and again getting to
shriek “APRIL FOOLS!” at me. (And again, and again, and for anything the whole
dang day…APRIL FOOLS!) We also brought extra “juice cups” to Grammie and Gramp’s
house. Baelin thought the joke was much funnier the second time around. In the end the best prank award had to go to
Grandpa, who pulled the old “rattle snake egg” trick on the boys. He told the boy’s he had gotten them some Star
Wars trading cards, and threw them into envelopes for safe keeping. Romyn was
very surprised by the homemade buzzer hidden inside instead. Baelin, again, was
just confused. (Find out how to make
your own here!)
This year April 1st
was a great day and I really hope the boys remember these times growing up. As a bonus
they also got to watch The Empire Strikes Back for
the first time ever and after played at the Bounce House. I do worry about their
selective memories, but if looking back on this last deployment has taught me
anything it is that my boys seem to remember more of the good than the bad. Which
is excellent, because maybe then they can both forget about Romyn’s infamous second
solo prank. Just because you yell “April Fool’s” after you spank your brother
inside a giant Superman inflatable it does not excuse you from a timeout. Poor
Baelin, next year he gets extra Jell-O.
Till next time- Kendra
