Our oldest son, Adan (age 6), came over to me this afternoon and asked for some string. I thought, “Okay, a little string sounds harmless enough.” So, I asked him what type of string he needed, and would yarn work okay. He said it would. I cut some yarn for him and as I handed it to him I asked, “What are you going to do with the yarn?” He said, “I am going to make a trap to catch a leprechaun. You know, St. Patrick’s Day is coming soon, and I’ve never caught one before.” It was so cute…he was absolutely serious. As a matter of fact, he had already made a booklet with the “instructions” for the trap.

He had a very specific idea of what he wanted (hmmm, I wonder where he gets that from…). I helped him create a black “pot” out of construction paper. As it turns out, the first one I made was bigger than what he had in mind, so he asked me to make it “small”. When I say “small”, imagine something the size of a jar of baby food (that cracks me up, in and of itself, because it means he believes leprechauns are teeny-tiny). Anyway, the next step was to find some “gold” coins to put in the pot. They had to look gold, so I found some old coins I had from my trips to Russia and Mexico. He put the coins in the pot and then placed the pot in a clear plastic storage box as bait (because leprechauns love pots with gold :)). Next, he went outside to find a stick, which he will use to prop-up the clear plastic box over the pot of gold. The yarn, of course, we will tie to the stick so he can pull it out and trap the leprechaun in the pot.

Adan has it all figured out. Now, we are ready for St. Patrick’s Day…