Leprechaun's Day

That’s what the kids call St. Patrick’s Day. It seems like every year their knowledge of leprechauns increases and they have all kinds of expectations about what the little guys are going to do during the day. Emily learned at school that leprechauns can lift anything in the world except Styrofoam. So, the kids spent half of Wednesday night making little leprechaun traps out of Styrofoam cups. They wrote cool things like “TONS OF GOLD IN HERE” on the cups and propped one edge up with a broken crayon. The first thing they did in the morning was check the traps. Some of them had been triggered, but there were no leprechauns inside. Bummer. Their over-active imaginations had them seeing mischief everywhere. “This isn’t where I left that. Did you move it? I didn’t move it. It must have been the leprechaun playing a trick on me.” Abby and I went over to help in Emily’s class and for the rest of the day Abby talked about how “that naughty leprechaun put glitter all over the floor in Emily’s class.” They are funny kids. We played it up a bit with some green food and drink and our traditional treasure hunt for a pot of gold. It was a fun day, but I’m starting to worry that my kids will be the only 8th graders that still believe in leprechauns and tooth fairies and the Easter Bunny.