How our kids know a REAL leprechaun visits our house
Let’s just put it all down on the table to start. In our house, we do Santa, Elf on the Shelf, Halloween, and yes, even a leprechaun visits us.
We are a strong Christian family, but we do make-believe and pretend. In our house, we believe you can still have culture and tradition on top of a solid all-the-glory-to-God faith life. If you have any opinions about that, you can just go ahead and write those in your diary and leave them there. Thanks. ;o)
So, on March 17th Eve, our kids know with absolutely certainty that a real life leprechaun visits our house. He is on the hunt for gold and he is ruthless.
This little 9 inch tall Irishman more or less trashes our house every year. One year he ransacked the kitchen and pulled all of the pots and pans out and spread them all over the floor. Another year, he left gold glitter dust everywhere he went (we found it everywhere for months….mooooonths). Last year, he even tipped over furniture - including flipping our massive dining room table on its side!
Can you believe a little leprechaun can do all that??
Our kids can.
The first year he visited, our then-3-year-old saw the mess, looked me straight in the eye and asked “Mom, you did this, didn’t you?”
With my best Oscar-deserving, lying-through-my-teeth parent face I could muster, I looked her straight back in the eyes and said, “Kiddo, does this look like something Mommy would do?”
It was then that her eyes got HUGE. She knew in that moment that it had to be real, because here’s what my kids know about me… I am clean. I am organized. I don’t like a mess. I like clean counters. I like swept floors. I like things where they belong.
Ransacking our house would be completely out of my character. It would be completely against my nature. It couldn’t possibly be me who did it.
But it was, and it is. Every year, it’s me.
Because, here’s the thing…we can choose to act differently than our nature wants us to. I am super Type A and anal, but I can choose to be different.
Let me say it another way. When my husband, the sweet man that he is, loads the dishwasher “wrong” (because clearly my way is the only right way) I can immediately rearrange it to the “right” way, or I can choose to go against my nature and simply thank him and move on.
One of these options has a better outcome than the other. Trust me.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with being Type A. Being Type A comes in handy in plenty of situations. My clients love that they have an accountant that’s super detail-oriented. My kids love that Mom reserves the best campsites exactly 180 days in advance when reservations open up. And Hubby loves having an estimate of what college is going to cost our kids in the year 2031.
It’s not a terrible thing. But sometimes our nature isn’t the best thing in every situation.
Sometimes we have to look above ourselves and think about if our natural instincts are best suited for each situation. Sometime we have to think about what’s bigger than us. There’s some leprechaun magic that happens when we we can assess a situation and acknowledge which way we’re being led.
Only, maybe it’s not actually leprechaun magic.
“Set your minds on things above…” Col 3:2 (NIV)
Wait, did she just drop a Bible verse at the end of a blog post that started with an imaginary leprechaun?
I sure did.
So what situations do you have to take a breath, dig deep, and act greater than your instinct? Marriage? Work? Leprechaun shenanigans?
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