Gage and Austen both love watching online videos of people getting pranked, failing at activities and in general chaos. We laugh at how the person in video was tricked. I comment on how I’ll do that to them one day and they should get ready. Sometimes, they giggle at that idea but mostly they complain that they don’t want me to do that. Mamma does a huffy at me and wonders why I upset them. Background: I’m ready for the pranks. I’ve been ready. I’ve been waiting since their birth. Giving them warnings. Telling them to laugh it off. Don’t take it personally. And, these aren’t any overly sophisticated pranks I’m talking about. Just the basic ones you’ve seen repeatedly – clear wrap over the toilet, hiding in the inky shadows, etc. For Christmas 2015, I tried my first prank. The kids wanted an xbox. I bought one wrapped the empty box and wrote a big black X on the outside of the box. Get it? X. Box. Oh man…the tears and yelling was the real surprise. Even after I revealed they got the actual Xbox and that this was just a little joke. It passed over relatively quickly and life went on. Now with Christmas 2016 approaching, I thought I’d continue the path and up the game a little. We had iPad and iPhone packaging which I wrapped up. The iPad box contained a notepad with a bunch of hand drawn eyes on it. The iPhone had an old flip phone with the letter I attached. I put the whole thing in an Apple bag to add the final touch of realness. Boom. Ready to go. This is gonna be great! Note to future self: this was not great. It was bad. It was reallly, really bad. It was super duper shmuper bad. Get the idea? It started with joy at the sight of the boxes, followed by tears, crying, yelling, hitting and then stomping off. “You ruined Christmas!” was the theme for the next several weeks. I thought Mamma would help defend me but she joined in with the kids. #totalfail The story was told to visiting family who didn’t think it was a big deal so I had finally received some support but it only provided temporary solace. The kids and Mamma continued to be unhappy about it. Fast forward a few weeks and Austen agreed to pranks except on major holidays/events. Mamma also hedged her position a little. Gage however remains steadfast in opposing the entire concept of pranking. Let’s see what happens… Dada