The Leprechaun Trap

Last week, Joe-Henry came home with a unique homework assignment. He has to build a leprechaun trap.

It has to be workable, and clever. So we've been gathering our materials: glitter, natch; popsicle sticks, of course; Legos, because they always come in handy somehow; string and a styrofoam cup as the actual trap. We have some cardboard stock to put it all on, and we've been decorating, because Leprechauns are very artistic. It will also have some well placed "Do Not Enter" signs, because they are notoriously naughty about not following rules.

They are also attracted to sparkly things. Which makes me wonder if perhaps I'm part Leprechaun? (I think it's written into law somewhere that I am not to be allowed anywhere near a bedazzler.) So we've been glitterizing (I'm sure that's a word, if it's not it should be) all of it, including the inside of the actual trap. I told JH that our leprechaun won't see that until it's too late, but he insisted. "Mom, just because I'm trapping him, doesn't mean I want him to be unhappy. If he's going to be there, he should be comfortable".

But don't tell Amnesty International about their future leader just yet. After working on his trap, he was playing around with his Legos, and he'd built a funeral pyre for his Lego fireman, who'd lost an arm in a grisly accident, and Joe-Henry was having a LIT-tle too much fun relaying the details to me. Of course, I think that was just because he enjoys making me worry about his future. He and his friend from next door were playing spies yesterday, using the cheap walkie-talkies I got him this weekend, and his "spy glasses". I looked over and he was holding his little flashlight like a gun and he had his bubble pipe in his mouth like a cigarette.

Weapons! Cigarettes! Let me just get you some pork rinds and heroin for a healthy snack, and we'll be good to go.

Sigh. Raising children is nothing if not interesting.