Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We are not at all Irish, unless you count the few years that PisecoDad’s Scottish ancestors spent in Ireland on their way to America. But we love our Celtic roots and we love to celebrate the Americanized version of the holiday.
Our St. Patrick’s Day always starts out with a hunt to see what Little Leprechaun (sometimes Lucky or Lefty) has done in our house. Usually there is one area where he’s done something very tricky, but also left a few presents. This year, Little Leprechaun hung our SHOES on our COAT hooks and piled our coats on the floor. There was also a green bag hanging from the coat hooks, with presents inside.
We always seem to need an hour or so to pore over the presents. This year, BabyGirl got a new doll, blocks for the bathtub, and a set of board books of songs by Nadine Westcott. JediBoy got the movie The Jungle Book, a new card game called Monkey Memory, and a Sonic the Hedgehog math game for his Leapster.
Once we’re done exploring the presents, we head into the kitchen for breakfast. It’s always the same: a brand-new box of Lucky Charms cereal (which we honestly don’t like that much and don’t eat at any other time of the year!).
But before we eat it, we always pour one cup for each of us and make a bar graph of the marshmallow distribution. Ah, doesn’t that sound geeky? It’s something I always get a huge kick out of, though, and my enthusiasm is usually infectious.
After we’ve counted the marshmallows, we add the milk - but what’s this? Yes, Little Leprechaun turned our milk green too.
Later, we’ll have green cheese for lunch (macaroni and cheese with food coloring and broccoli cuts mixed in) and dilly dip for afternoon snack (1 container each sour cream, mayo, and canned corned beef mixed with a little onion, fresh dill and fresh parsley). We will read our St. Patrick’s Day books one last time, watch our new movie and play the game on the back of the Lucky Charms box. It’s sunny and bright today so we’ll probably go out to a park for a while too.
We often celebrate more in the evening, but today that will be fairly subdued, since PisecoDad has had a death in his family and will be heading out of town for the funeral this afternoon and not returning until very late.
