Fool Me Once...and I'll fall for it over and over and over

I gotta tell ya, I was really dragging on April Fools Day. However, with my pursuit of "Mother of the Year" in full swing, I had no choice but to come up with a prank to play on my kids. So off to FamilyFun.com I went (cuz that's what award-winning moms do, knowing as they do that thinking for yourself is a waste of time). I liked this fake dad one a lot (who wouldn't? He always listens, never criticizes and almost never farts. I think I'm in love.). Hubby was out-of-town, so it seemed like the perfect time to confuse my kids for life. So I stuffed hubby's clothes and rigged a newspaper sheet with cardboard and tape. Like thus:

Okay, so our chairs don't have high armrests like the ones at Family Fun. Which made it hard to get everything tall enough to really imitate Hubby's height. Not that I didn't try--I have the five miles of wasted packing tape to prove it.

So one by one the kids come trickling in from school. Each has the exact same reaction, stopping dead in their tracks, uttering a "What the?", and then hesitantly approaching it in an arc to peek behind the paper. Then they turn to see me snickering and start laughing. And guess who each one of them thought it was? Not Hubby, but Grandma Dixie. I can see that. Plus, she's so hard-of-hearing, that she doesn't hear people enter a room, which is much like this fake.

The kids had fun inviting their friends all over and fooling them. Shnookie 2 even yelled loudly at it "Grandma! Look! So-and-so is here! GRANDMA!!" Good times. We just left it there for a few days, and it would freak each of us out EVERY time we came around the corner. (Oh my, that sounds even lamer when actually written down! Yes, we're just that stupid.)