Last night was our first night of uninterrupted sleep since the twins were born. That’s 7.5 months for me—much longer for my wife who was basically peeing every 90 minutes during the third trimester. 

The timing was almost perfect. A week earlier and it would’ve been a great birthday present. 

And perhaps a bit of a blessing? There’s something about getting punked by your parents for 20 years that builds a healthy skepticism and a deeply held belief in the importance of honesty. I’m seeing some early signs that my daughter is also a truth teller. 

The day before my birthday, my wife informs me that my birthday present is getting to sleep in (great present, in theory). Later that afternoon, my daughter gives me a very coy look.

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“Can I tell you something–” she glances around, her Mom is sitting right there, she looks back at me and audibly whispers, “–that Mommy told me not to tell you?”

“Uh…” 

My wife is, at this moment, more interested in hearing what she has to say than reprimanding her for sharing something she was explicitly told not to share. Daughter slides over. Directly into my ear with the world’s hottest breath: 

“You’re getting another present.” My wife hears everything. She shrugs and says, “Maybe. But maybe it's an early April Fool’s joke.”

What kid hears a phrase like April Fool’s Joke™ and doesn’t immediately inquire? Not mine, that’s for sure.

“What’s that?”

First, I have a hard time calibrating. 

“Dad, what’s a guillotine?” (Shoutout to Ludwig Bemelmans and the Madeline stories)

I’m 25 minutes into a lecture on the Reign of Terror, Robespierre, the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, before my wife puts us both out of our misery with something age-appropriate like, “It’s what they use to cut off chicken’s heads.”

And second, when a kid asks me something—anything—I cannot resist the temptation of adding absurd embellishments. 

Take, for example, the time our daughter cut her hair with scissors. To her credit, when we interrupted she was on her way to perfect curtain bangs. Still not okay. We took away the scissors. 

“Where did you put my scissors?”

“I put them in our dungeon.”

“We have a dungeon?”

“Yes. It’s under the trapdoor, down the spiral staircase”

“Really? Is anyone down there?”

At this point, my wife, who, over the course of 11 years, has refined her ability to communicate entire paragraphs of thought in a single look, gives me the “you’re going to have a hard time unwinding this and it will likely have consequences that go outside of our house–like to her school–if you keep this up” look. I can’t help myself.

“Not anymore. We moved the prisoners to the neighbor’s dungeon when the twins were born.”

“What prisoners?”

“The King of the Rats was the main one.”

Wife interjects with a subject change and gives me a look that does not require 11 years to understand.

My present—the luxury of sleeping in until 7:30am—doesn’t quite go as planned. Wife wakes up at 5:30am to get a head start on the morning. She’s an angel for that. I barely rouse. The babies wake up crying at 6:15. That rouses a bit more. At 6:45 the bedroom door opens (daughter apparently forgot about gift), which rouses slightly, but it’s quickly closed. At 6:55 it became obvious that when the door was opened, a cat came into the room. The cat on the bed causes a full rouse when she jumps off the headboard onto my chest. Then between 7:00 and 7:30 I’m fully awake thinking, “I should probably go downstairs and help.” The guilt of lying there while listening to two babies cry downstairs is a greater impediment to sleep than the actual crying.

But I’m not complaining. Because when I went downstairs, I got a very cute rendition of Happy Birthday and an Alice In Chains t-shirt. 

Besides a few shorter-than-you’d-like naps and some zesty attitude moments, the day was shaping up to be a really nice birthday. 

We go out for ice cream in the afternoon. Daughter gets some disgusting orange and purple flavor. I go with a pure dad play: mint chocolate chip. Some of my daughter’s friends from school are there so she pops over to say hi.

I’m paying when I hear, “... yeah the King of Rats was down there but they moved him out. Do you guys have a dungeon?”

“Uhhh heeyyyyy guys, haha she’s just kidding.”

My daughter looks at me in disbelief. I have to break the news in front of her friends that we don’t have a dungeon which is embarrassing for her and me for completely different reasons. I try to save face by explaining that we do have a crawlspace. 

“Are my scissors in the crawlspace?”

The parents around us are noticeably confused. I am counting down the minutes until I can abandon my family for the next chapter of the evening.

Finally, after dishes and 2 out of 3 put downs, I’m on my way to meet a few local dads for beers and pool.

But I slipped it in anyways, shamelessly, because a birthday beer is better when it’s free. My (fair and just) punishment was being called “the birthday boy” for the next hour and a half. But I was on fire on the pool table so whatever.

7:45pm rolls around and we all go home because it’s Wednesday. 

I get home and join my wife at the kitchen counter.

“How was it?” she asks.

“It was fun. How was putting Carson down?”

“Easy. You know what? Since you didn’t really get to sleep in this morning for your birthday, you could sleep in again tomorrow if you wanted.”

“Really?”

“Ha. No. April Fool’s loser.”

What a woman. 

Thanks for reading! Hope you laughed. See you next time.

-Will

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