To Catch a Leprechaun

The boys were determined that this would be the year they caught a leprechaun. Sawyer is now old enough to team up with Will and between the two of them they were confident it could be done.

The leprechauns scored the first points in the St. Patrick's Day battle though. The boys woke up to find that a leprechaun had colored their fingernails and toenails green, drawn shamrocks on their cheeks, colored the toilet water green, and left them a taunting note on the bathroom mirror along with little leprechaun footprints.

I *may* have still been awake when the leprechauns were going about this nasty business. Shortly after they completed their mischief Will woke up to go to the bathroom. I watched from the bottom of the stairs as he wandered into the bathroom, turned on the light, peed, washed his hands, turned off the light and got back into bed. All without noticing any of the leprechaun's recent activities. This makes me wonder what else we could get away with in the middle of the night.

In the morning Bryce had an early church basketball game. He had told Will that he could go with him if he woke up on time. Will had been up the night before so, of course, he wasn't awake by 7:30 on Saturday morning. I heard him wake up shortly after Bryce left and he came running into our bedroom to tell us he was ready to go. I told him that Dad had already left. Total meltdown ensued. I sent him back to his room to cry and after about 5 minutes of crying I heard:...(long pause)...gasp!...gasp! And then he came tearing into my room saying "Mom! Look what a leprechaun did!" He woke up Sawyer and they discovered the "Will and Sawyer can't catch me!" note on the bathroom mirror. They took off downstairs to get their butterfly nets and spent the morning creating various traps.

The boys spent the day trying to find a leprechaun. I spent the day trying to convince them that maybe if they cleaned up the house it would be easier to see if there were any leprechauns hiding out in here. (Any opportunity to trick children into cleaning up I will take.)

We made another leprechaun trap cake as well as some pot roast with (supposedly) traditional Irish potato pancakes (boxtys) and mashed potato and cabbage dish (colcannon). I found the recipes online so I'm sure they are legit.

Before we had friends over for dinner we promised we would take the boys out leprechaun hunting. We gathered up some nets and drove around the neighborhood looking for mischief or anything green lurking about. When we drove past the church Bryce thought he saw something green dart past out of the corner of his eye. We let the boys out to investigate. And while they weren't quite fast enough to catch the little stinker they did find a pot of treasure! Will said "Hey! There's something over here! It's a pot! The leprechaun's pot!"

The boys were ecstatic. They were also a little worried that the leprechaun was going to be really, really mad. The pot is still being stored in our garage where they can keep an eye on it because they are convinced he will come try to take it back.

The pot has a striking similarity to one that has been in the flower bed in our front yard for the past 3 years, and which is now missing, but the boys haven't noticed its familiarity nor its absence. Makes me wonder what else could disappear and reappear as something new.

The boys were very excited to tell their friends, aunts, grandparents, etc. about their find, but they really were a little stressed that an angry leprechaun might come steal their money. Luckily we haven't had any go missing so far.