Happy St Patrick’s Day!

It was a St Patrick’s Day yesterday. We are not Irish, but I figured that it would be nice for Anna to have some awareness of various cultures and their traditions. So I talked to her about shamrocks (naively, I called them clovers until I started to look for some activity ideas for St Patrick’s day). I printed out pretty shamrocks and brought them home with the thoughts of having Anna color them. But… the weather was just too nice. I abandoned all the thoughts of teaching my child to color within the lines, and we went to our neighborhood park instead. I managed to find and show her real clover leaves. We talked about how a clover usually has three leaves, but a “lucky” clover can have four. We didn’t find any ”lucky ones”  Then we hunted dandelions and blew them. We talked how dandelions start yellow and then turn white, and how white seeds are blown by the wind. I was commenting how the grass became long and healthy and green after all the rains we had. Suddenly Anna said, Mama, I am in the meadow! Just like Tootle! I asked, So are you a train now? She looked at me and said chidingly, No, I am Anna. I want to go on a swing now! And she skipped along in an inimitable way of a happy toddler.