Trap

A few years ago, my sister texted a picture of a colorful box plastered in green and rainbow designs. “What’s that?” I remember asking. She went on to describe her oldest son’s homework assignment, to create a leprechaun trap. “For school?” I asked. I had never heard of such a thing. But over the years, she has sent similar photos, nearly every March, capturing creations made by her other sons as they started going to school.

Then, last week, as I emptied my own daughter’s home/school folder, there it was. An assignment to create a leprechaun trap as a family. I quickly tossed the paper into the “for another time” pile on the kitchen counter and made a note to deal with that on the weekend. Meanwhile, Wren was over the moon about this homework. Each day, she mentioned ideas like, “Maybe there can be a ladder for the leprechaun…or maybe there can be a pot of fake gold.” I half listened not wanting to face the assignment.

Then this morning, as various parts of school lunches and salad jars sat in disarray on the kitchen counters and the green light on the waffle iron signaled that someone’s breakfast was ready, Wren came stomping through the kitchen. “I wanted to make a leprechaun trap today!” she huffed.

“Well, let me just drop what I’m doing,” I thought to myself.

Keeping my thoughts to myself and trying to hold the morning together (did I mention my husband conveniently went into work for a few hours…on a Sunday?), I channeled the Maker Space I observed in our school library last week. Kids were busy creating, with carefully drawn plans laid in front of them.

“Well, you need to make a plan,” I said to Wren. “You can’t just make a leprechaun trap. Do you have an idea of what your trap might look like?” I pulled out the iPad and clicked on Pinterest…where else does one go for exemplar leprechaun traps?!?

Wren disappeared with the iPad, only to return a little while later with a list of materials she needed. She sat on the kitchen floor, marker in hand, asking me what materials we had and checking off as she went. Together we brainstormed substitutes for any items we didn’t have and I firmly said, “No!” to the glitter.

Still not ready to jump in, the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes since our new dishwasher has not been installed yet, I needed to buy more time. “You need a plan of how it’s going to go,” I said. “Like, what is it going to look like?”

She disappeared again and while she was gone, Adi appeared with her list of materials. Apparently she gave herself a leprechaun trap assignment.

Adi’s list.

Some time later, Wren reappeared with handwritten steps for each part of the trap she wanted to create. I was surprised because I had assumed she would have sketched a drawing to show her vision. I quickly spotted my next move. This time I sent her off to complete step seven, “Make a rainbow out of paper.” I knew she could do this without my help.

When all the kitchen chores were done and it was semi cleaned up, I grabbed a couple of cardboard boxes from the basement and joined my excited daughters at the kitchen table to construct their leprechaun traps.

As they worked they asked questions like, “Do you think he’ll really fall in?” When considering the perfect position for the faux gold Wren suggested gluing it down, “Cause then if he really goes to get them, they’ll be stuck.”

In my head I was wondering how her teacher had introduced this assignment and what these kids thought was going to happen!

As we neared the end of construction, and a lesson on “less is more”, Wren whispered to me, out of earshot of Adi, “I know leprechauns aren’t actually real…”

“So why are we making this trap?” I asked.

“Because school said so,” she replied.

At that point, I was probably more confused by the assignment than when we started, but I’m a joy seeker, not a joy sucker. Plus, it kept my stir crazy crew busy planning, writing, and building long enough to keep them out of my hair for a while. I’ll take it.

The finished pieces.

And here’s Rose, just because she’s cute. She had no interest in trapping leprechauns. She was just happy to sit at the table and play with her baby.