![\"Trap](\"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/03\/leprechaun-1.jpg\")
<\/a>Trap 2013 – complete with Fairy Cloie’s house on top of a gold mine<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>All the shoes that Fairy Cloie needs repaired.<\/p><\/div>\n
One of my earliest memories is arriving to my kindergarten classroom on St. Patrick\u2019s Day only to discover the whole room turned topsy-turvy with the windows left wide open.\u00a0 Keep in mind this was March 17 in Pensacola so Minnesota’s winter wind wasn\u2019t something we had to contend with.\u00a0 The alarmed and shell-shocked teacher asked us all to help her\u00a0pick up and to see if we could figure out what happened.\u00a0 Eventually one of my classmates discovered footprints \u2013\u00a0GREEN! and lots of them on the windowsills.\u00a0 Leprechauns!<\/p>\n
I only have a few memories from kindergarten, but this one is definitely my favorite.\u00a0 As the Luck of the Irish would have it, those leprechauns stuck with me my whole life, and now they come to visit each year that my children remember to put out our special St. Paddy\u2019s day treasure box.\u00a0\u00a0 Fortunately,\u00a0we know all about the wee folk, their friends,\u00a0and all their doin\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Once or twice, we have been pixie-led in a forest.\u00a0 We have listened for water sprites in babbling brooks.\u00a0 We look for faerie nets in the morning dew, and we sincerely hope that those faeries are wearing out their shoes.\u00a0 (Of course, that\u2019s how the leprechauns get their gold \u2013 fixin\u2019 faerie shoes.)\u00a0 Then there are the leprechauns. . .<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve gotten older, I seem to have a complicated relationship with the three that visit our house.\u00a0 For as long back as Reed was old enough to leave out a treasure box, the same three Irishmen have visited our house.\u00a0 Oh, I believe in them, but I just don\u2019t endorse their ways all the time.\u00a0 The funny thing about leprechauns is they do keep their promises; albeit not exactly the way you think they should.<\/p>\n
They are obliged to fill that treasure box if you leave that treasure box out by the light of the moon on St. Patrick\u2019s Eve.\u00a0 The problem arises when the whole \u201cHey! They\u2019re trying to find me gold\u201d mentality that the wee folk have rears its ugly head. \u00a0When the kids were really little that thought never crossed their minds. But as it goes with children, they, too, get bigger and their thinking gets more sophisticated.<\/p>\n
Almost overnight, some type of magic switch turns itself on, and my normal children become construction experts\u00a0as well as\u00a0engineering and architectural aficionados.\u00a0 They have created elaborate traps, each offering some alluring \u201cbait\u201d to entice the leprechauns to enter in the hopes of hitting it big \u2013 meeting a leprechaun.\u00a0 (So far, none have spent their gold before they caught one.)<\/p>\n
<\/a>Trap 2013 – complete with Fairy Cloie’s house on top of a gold mine<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>All the shoes that Fairy Cloie needs repaired.<\/p><\/div>\n