Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds April-fooled by kids

Blake Lively has discovered the downside of raising four creative children, and it involves plastic wrap, a toilet seat and a very well-timed prank.

The actress shared the results of her kids' April Fool's Day efforts on her Instagram Stories on 1 April, posting a short clip of her toilet lid covered in pink markings and the seat itself wrapped in plastic wrap. 

She repeatedly poked the centre to show just how thoroughly she had been set up, captioning the video with a wry admission: "I knew I never should've taught them how to read a calendar."

The culprits were her and husband Ryan Reynolds' four children, James, 11, Inez, 9, Betty, 6, and Olin, 3. 

The couple, who married in 2012, tend to keep their kids out of the public eye, but have never been shy about describing the cheerful chaos of life with four young children.

Reynolds spoke about their parenting philosophy at the Wall Street Journal's CMO Summit in New York last November, describing a deliberately gentle approach that somehow still results in gleeful mayhem. 

"Soft parenting is new, right? I didn't have that," he said. "There's not a lot of yelling or punishments or anything like that." 

He was under no illusions about the outcome, though. 

"My kids feel safe. Are they still, like, spawns of Satan? Yes. Am I calling myself Satan [at] this moment? Yes. But they are. They are still kids."

Lively, meanwhile, has described her own experience of motherhood with characteristic warmth. 

"My life has become more intimate," she told Vogue in August 2024.

"Sitting around with them doing chicken dances while I have a very serious conversation with you is probably the most accurate portrait of me possible."

Based on Tuesday's prank, that portrait is very much still accurate.