Mardi Gras is a magical time in New Orleans and Isabel had no idea what she was in for, which made it that much cuter. Keep in mind that last weekend we potty trained Isabel and while she’s doing great, she isn’t 100% there. That means that for each parade, in addition to the normal kid stuff we had to bring spare clothes and our portable potty.
Friday night, we used the wagon as a potty mobile and went to watch Isabel’s first ever Mardi Gras parade! It was amazing to watch her slowly realize just what was involved in a New Orleans Mardi Gras parade. First we saw a police car and she was super excited. Then we saw a truck pulling a giant speaker trailer with a dancer team behind it and her enthusiasm went even higher. Then...A horse! And another horse! And then someone on one of the horses gave her a flower! Her smile was ear to ear. And finally, the best part of the parades – the floats arrived. She was floored that these idiots in the float were just throwing her necklaces, toy balls, and stuffed penguins and all she had to do in return was wave and say ‘thank you.’ It was awesome!
Saturday we went on a family bike ride to the parades down on St Charles. This time we had our potty bungee corded to the backpack, which is a red carpet look if I’ve ever seen one. For each float, Jake or I would hold Isabel and get close to the floats. Her role is to be very cute and make people want to give her stuff. Our role is two-fold – first to catch the goodies that Isabel convinced people to throw her and second to protect Isabel’s face from said throws. We succeeded in that, but both jake and I took at least one ‘necklace’ to the face in the process.
The excitement of the weekend took it out of everyone and so we had some ‘chill time’ and a little Moana time. Some of us are better at relaxing than others - Jake.
I for one am going to call Mardi Gras 2019 a success!