lying to your kids, part two

One of the problems with those fairy tales we tell our kids is that complete, across-the-board adult complicity is required in order to maintain the lie. So it is with Santa Claus--as I mentioned a while back, it doesn't matter whether you choose to tell your kids about Santa or not, since they'll just get it from school. And then you've got to just roll with it, because everyone else is, and if you don't, you'll be that horrid old grinch who tells their kid there's no Santa. And then your kid goes back to school and tells the other kids, and next thing you know, you're the one who's blown it for everyone.

(This has in fact happened to me, but I'll save that one for another day.)

My daughter's school is full of all sorts of outrageous tales that the teachers just assume the parents are in on. Some of them, like the ones about the leprechauns, have taken some studious explaining on my daughter's part before I picked up the hint. How am I supposed to know that leprechauns come on St. Patrick's day and leave you candy for your money? Not just any candy, either: we're talking foil-wrapped chocolate gold coins here.

This was news to me.

And we weren't given a lot of preparation time keep the story going, either. My daughter arrived home one afternoon explaining that she was going to make a "leprechaun trap" and that if she made a good one, a leprechaun would come take the "bait" and leave her candy. Because everyone knows that leprechauns are loaded with foil-wrapped chocolate gold coins, and all you have to do is trick them into giving some of it up.

So there we were, spending a good hour constructing this leprechaun trap according to the instructions she'd received at school and loading it up with shiny stuff that leprechauns like, and all the while I was feeling *pretty sure* these leprechauns were going to be a no-show and that I'd need to plan on a full-scale intervention if her trap were going to work out.

But foil-wrapped chocolate gold coins are just not the sort of thing I have lying around in my cupboard all the time. And it's not like there was time to go dashing out looking for some in the stores, either.

So I substituted leftover marshmallow Easter chicks instead.

Fortunately, it turns out that kids aren't too particular about the details. Marshmallow chicks; foil-wrapped chocolate coins; it doesn't matter--just so long as the miracle actually takes place.

And so we were saved that day. Off she went to school, successful trap in hand to show the class (did I mention this was actual homework?). She came home that afternoon again full of stories about upset classroom furniture and the green pee in the toilets where the leprechauns had decided to pause for a leak.

Those teachers really take their work seriously.