Dad April Fools Son, Mom Gets The Credit For ‘Good Joke’

April 1st is a day for the pranksters. If you love playing jokes on your friends, family and co-workers, April Fools' Day is what it's all about.My oldest son who turns 9 is a kind and thoughtful little man, despite me being his father. He is also beginning to understand what April Fools' Day is all about. This is fun times for any parent, because this means you can also mess with them, but in my case, going for a full on April Fools' joke is not happening. I did want to do something because I knew his reaction was going to be priceless. It was. Let me tell you how I pulled it off.

Our home is always in a state of "two boxes of open cereal at all times." I also know that when he is looking for breakfast in the morning, it's usually one of those two boxes. So I swapped out the bags.

First the Cocoa Puffs box now filled with the Apple Jacks. Then Apple Jacks filled with Cocoa Puffs.

Harmless. It's really my kind of prank. No injuries, no tears, and for my son, no scarred childhood memories when he's an adult. I missed my son's initial reaction this morning when pouring cereal from the wrong box into his bowl, but he did tell me a bit about the experience afterwards.

As he's getting ready to leave for school, he says "Hey Dad, Mom switched out the bags of cereal." How about that? I play the April Fools' Joke on the kid and his mother gets all the credit? One of two things happened this morning, my kid thinks I am either too nice to do something like that, or he thinks I'm not bright enough to pull it off. Either way, that's an answer I don't ever want to hear.