The Van Zante Family: Jokers

We are a family of practical jokers. As long as it doesn't harm anyone (physically OR emotionally), involve lying (or other such no-nos) and its all done in fun, any joke is fair play. Our kids have a wonderful sense of humor and are starting to get into the fun of playing pranks. A recent phase Caleb went through was to hide our VERY realistic plastic snake in places that would make Daddy jump when he first saw it, i.e. under the sheets. Caleb did it so often, though, that the snake is no longer effective (much to my dismay because that was a favorite trick of mine,too... I just didn't do it so often and so I always got a good little yelp/jump out of Josh when he saw it!). In the last blog, you saw how I parked the Jeep. Such silliness as that.

The recent phase of jokes has been on Caleb and it involves his "big" T-Rex dinosaur. It all got started when Caleb and Josh put one of Caleb's nice dress shirts and socks on the dino while waiting for me to come in and join the bedtime routine. Next, I put one of Caleb's baby onesies on him for Caleb to find. Next, Josh and I put a hat and some old slippers on it and then moved it to a chair in Caleb's room all while Caleb was sleeping... you get the idea. Now the joke involves me or Josh moving the dino to new spots, usually when Caleb is sleeping, so that Caleb finds it in its new location but has no idea how he got there. (It might sound dumb to you, but remember we're working with a 5 year old here and he LOVES it!) Sometimes we include some props, sometimes not. Caleb's reactions are hilarious! At first, he was really quite confused about it but he's now caught on to what's going on (though he won't admit it because he wants the fun to continue).

Here's a sampling of what our buddy T-Rex has been up to:

Our ever-so-handsome sleeping son, oblivious to his parents sneaking around his room causing mischief!
I've got wonderful flash on my camera that allows me to take pictures in the complete dark and still get good pictures! And somehow, the flash doesn't startle sleeping Caleb (or sleeping Sarah) at all!

I think the Thomas the Train slippers and toothbrush completes the outfit, don't you? This is one smart dino to be able to not only dress himself BUT also go into the bathroom and get a toothbrush, too!

After a couple of nights, Caleb thought the best plan of action would be to put the dino in a box so he couldn't do anything overnight. I didn't have a box handy, so would a paper bag work? Sure, its worth a try! So that's what we did. Caleb stuffed Poor Dino into a paper bag for the night to quell any mischievous deeds he might be up to...

...except the dino ripped out of the bag!...

...stripped off all his clothes and left them laying in the middle of the floor!...

...grabbed a hat and climbed onto Caleb's nightstand to be able to greet him first thing in the morning! (I think the piece of torn paper bag in his mouth was a nice touch!)

Again, taken at night with Caleb sleeping.

Between that picture and the next, the dino met us on the porch upon returning from a trip to town, somehow got on the treadmill and suddenly appeared on the stairs before going up to bed!