Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Happy Saint Paddy's!

Carrie left me with the boy to go grab some more ingredients for a corned beef dinner. The boy's snoozing so babysitting is easy!

Today was "Kilt Day" at work. Every Saint Patrick's I pull out the tartan, step into the kilt hose and blow some middle school minds. It's funny how overt the kid's reactions are (even the ones who try to hide it). You would think more middle schoolers would've figured out that their voices carry when they yell. I also find it so ironic that most of them are amazed that a man would wear a "skirt."  My school is very diverse so they've all seen head-coverings, shawls, saris, you name it....but a kilt?  A large segment of the population has a much closer heritage to Ireland than any of the other culture-based clothing, but they all go ape when they see it. I start all of my classes with a quick kilt/St. Paddy's day history lesson to help get all of the questions out so I can move on to math and science. "No, it's not a skirt. It's a kilt....or you can call it a 'man skirt'" and "No, it's not a purse. It's a sporran....or you can call it a 'man purse'" and much of the like. I also do a quick lesson on the fact my kilt isn't of the Irish-variety. It's my clan tartan.  That brings another line of questioning and it kills more time, but it shows the kids are actively interested and learning.

Then there's the leprechauns. They always follow the Irish around to cause trouble on Saint Patrick's Day. One year, they stole all the chairs from my classroom so the kids had to stand. Another year, they changed one of the school water coolers to be full of kool-aid (we were in trailers and had no water fountains).  This year, they must've been nice because they knew I'm busy with a new baby. There was leprechaun poop (skittles) and they deleted a large test so I had to give the kids a smaller one.

The boy's fidgeting. Time to check on my son!

EDIT: We ended up inviting our neighbor, Ken, over for corned beef, potatoes and beer. It was a great meal! Thanks, Carrie!