leprechaun on the loose

When I was kid my parents always had fun on Saint Patrick's day. My Mom, I mean a leprechaun, would turn the milk green and my Dad always organized a Corned beef and cabbage dinner at the church. We spent the evening waiting tables and raked in all kinds of dough in tips. What we looked forward to the most, however, was the singing. You can't get the Irish together without someone breaking out in song and everyone joining along, whether they know the words or not. And my Dad's corned beef and cabbage dinners were no exceptions.

While I don't particularly care for corned beef and cabbage myself, I still try to make the day fun for my kids. So ever since Sam and Teresa have been old enough, a little leprechaun has come make mischief every Saint Patrick's day. You never know what the little devil might do. The fun is stumbling upon one of his little tricks when you least expect it. The kids keep their eyes peeled, hoping to spot him at his antics but have yet to catch even a glimpse of him. This year they built a little trap, hoping to lure him in, but...alas....he was much to clever to stay caught for long. So they haven't managed to catch him and collect his pot of gold as reward. He's a careless little leprechaun though and is always dropping gold coins as he goes about his mischief which the kids hide away, as if they too were little folk. Green toilet water, stuffed toys in the tissue box, shoes in the fridge, superfort on the coffee table, the chairs turned the wrong way round, rocking horse standing on it's head and a monkey on the potty are a sampling of the kookiness we encountered this Saint Patrick's Day.


This year our Irish visitor was quite taken with a stuffed frog. The frog was seated on a stool and wearing a crown upon the landing as they came down the stairs in the morning. And no matter how many times we put him back on the windowsill where he belonged, we'd turn around to find him in some other impossible place. We thought when we went to bed the trouble would be over, but the leprechaun had the last word. We got up the morning of the 18th and found the poor frog stuffed into the leprechaun trap.

We are already thinking and planning next year's trap. Watch out little leprechaun!