Leprechaun Traps

Oh how I wish I would have taken a picture of the leprechaun traps we made. But sometimes you just get excited about what you're doing and you forget to take a picture. Ah well.

The fact is, though, that we did make leprechaun traps this evening (we wanted Daddy to get in on the fun) and it really was hilariously fun! As we've been talking about Ireland, leprechauns, rainbows, pots'o'gold, and all that good stuff this month, my kiddos have been unsure as to the reality of leprechauns. I keep telling them they aren't real and it's just a story, but they seem to hold onto this secret hope that maybe the little people really do exist. So I told them we would do an experiment to figure it out. I didn't think the idea would take hold as it did, but they were SO excited...as in jumping up and down, couldn't wait for daddy to get home, asking me every 2 minutes how many more minutes until it was time, EXCITED.

I had called my husband at work earlier in the day to let him know what to expect when he walked in the door, so, thankfully, that good man came home prepared. I had also prepped him for the fact that I wanted the boys to come up with their own ideas for how the traps should work--because them thinking about the cause and effects of it all was kind of the purpose of the whole thing.

So the hubby grabs a box and starts out with, "how are we going to use this box to catch a leprechaun, huh?" Which I thought was the perfect lead-in question to get them thinking. Our younger son was mostly just along for the ride, happy to help construct whatever creation the others thought of. But my older son's brain-wheels were working in overdrive. He was adamant the trap be some sort of device where the box fell down from the ceiling. This is where husbands with a science background come in handy. Before you knew it, I got to sit on the sidelines and watch contentedly as father and sons delved into a discussion about levers and pulley systems and tripwires and other things that I'm really not that interested in.

About an hour later, we had two working traps in our home, one that even fell down from the ceiling when the leprechaun grabbed the gold. We set the traps with gold and told the kids that the traps were an experiment. If the leprechauns were real then one would get caught in our traps, if not...then...not.

You've never seen kids so excited to go to bed in your lives. Or kids so excited to wake up in the morning. At 6am I awoke to my oldest son's face, two inches away from mine, loudly whispering about the state of the traps which he had taken the liberty of checking. Twice.