Looking for leprechauns

Day 14 of 31 at TWT!

Sweetie has been building a leprechaun trap for weeks. She's completely convinced she's going to catch one, which has resulted in some extra planning on our part (and a lot of discussions about how tricky and magical they are!). 

We convinced her that the leprechauns would only come around for a few days before St. Patrick's Day, but she's still had the trap sitting in the hallway outside her room for several weeks, just in case. However, every few days, she's gotten a new idea for how to make it more elaborate, adding on some new feature to snare them more effectively.

Last night, we told her that since it was our town's parade day (this year, an attempted "reverse parade" that was mostly one big traffic jam), she could finally set it for real. Because leprechauns are so tricky and therefore likely to steal their bait but escape, I convinced her to just use a few pieces of gold stickers and hide the rest. 

After adding yet one more piece to her elaborate trap, she put the gold in, yammering about how the leprechauns would be and how much they would really want to get her gold. 

In case you don't read kindergartener-ese, it says
"I have gold for you leprechaun please come"!

This morning, she ran into our room. "Mommy, Daddy! The front flap on my trap has been moved!"

"Did you look inside?" 

"No, I wanted to make sure you got to see the leprechaun if I caught one! Let's all go together!" She skipped back down the hallway, tense with anticipation.

Slowly pulling up the trap, she shrieked, "Look! He left me prizes!" She grabbed the shamrock tattoos with wide eyes, holding them up. "TATTOOS!!!"

"That's so nice! Those leprechauns are sneaky, but he wanted to leave you something to thank you for the gold he took! And he wanted to help you celebrate St. Patrick's Day!"

"I love them! I didn't know he would bring prizes! He really loves me!" 

"We'd better reset the trap in case he comes back tonight! Get some more gold!"

I guess we have a magical new addition to our family traditions and city celebrations, which is just perfect for this little Irish dancer! I'm thankful her creativity gave us a new way to make this holiday special, since we haven't been able to celebrate the usual ways in 2 years now!

Over the next few days, we'll dye some food green, drink Shamrock Shakes, put on some of our favorite Irish songs... and keep checking that trap!

(A local Irish group usually plays this song before our town's parade, complete with lots of fun motions for the different animals!)