Luck O' The Irish

So this past week, many of you celebrated St. Patrick's Day. I have never, ever, celebrated the holiday. I'm not Irish and I have no knowledge of who St. Patrick is or why he has is own day. I have nothing against the day, but it's just something that was never important to me. Just another day marked by shamrocks and beer.

This year at school, Alexa came home the day before St. Patrick's Day and announced they had set a leprechaun trap in the classroom. She was excited to see if they would catch him the next day. "Oh that's neat", I replied. And moved on.

Tuesday morning, the day of St. Patrick, Alexa had her weekly tap and ballet class. The instant we arrived, all the kids were chattering about how a leprechaun had come to their house. "He turned my pancakes green!", shouted one. "He turned the water in my toilet green!", shouted another. Alexa was just standing there. I saw her look at me, and she instantly ran over to me and whispered, "when is the leprechaun coming to our house?" Annoyed that this was turning into a bigger deal than what I had anticipated, I told her, "I'm not sure. Does he go to everyone's house?" "Yes he does, and he does something tricky," she replies. Great.

We moved on with the day. I hoped she would let the whole leprechaun idea go, however, it only escalated as the day moved on. "Maybe he'll turn my outfit green, maybe he'll turn my hair green, maybe he'll turn our house green!" "Maybe he'll come when I'm in bed tonight," she concludes.

Feeling increasingly obligated to do something, and knowing full well, this would have to be continued for years to come, I started to brainstorm on what I could do. Too late for pancakes, toilet water was already done, and seemed wierd to me to begin with. It was now 5:30pm and I was making dinner (something I hadn't even given forethought to yet, and now I also had to figure out something green). I shuffled through the cabinets for green food coloring thinking I could put it in their applesauce or something. Nothing. I dug some more, and found some green sprinkles. I experimented with the applesauce, but it just made it look like pea soup. Then I had an idea of mixing the green sprinkles on some pasta. It worked. It turned it a nice bright green. I scrounged up some chicken nuggets since I spent so much time trying to think of green food, and placed the dishes on the table.

I called the kids into dinner. I thought Alexa was going to explode. She screamed and told me to to "come quickly, the leprechaun came and turned the pasta green!" I of course acted surprised and explained he must of come when I was finishing the rest of dinner. So, the kids were served a healthy meal of processed chicken nuggets, and pasta with green colored sugar on it. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Nevertheless, Alexa was thouroughly overjoyed. She couldn't wait to go to school the next day to tell her teacher. As you can see from the above picture, Zachary was not impressed either way.

Could I have sat her down to explain about holidays, and leprechauns, and that they aren't really real? Sure. I might as well tell her about Santa too while I'm at it. I decided she will survive, and I just enjoyed revelling in her childhood imagination for the moment. I also know that I now have a whole year to think of something more creative for next time.