Ever since we moved to Louisiana, I have loved celebrating Mardi Gras.
You can palpate energy in air here around Mardi Gras. And it feels sacred, claimed by Louisiana solely. While the rest of the Nation goes to their day job, we are busy day drinking…eating king cake and draping ourselves in beads.
Ray had the entire week off from school to celebrate. Which was great because, my company (based in California) also gave me a whole week off work.
Only kidding.
How I actually juggled this was: I took Mardi Gras day off and then, praise the Lord, CJs parents came in to town from Arizona for the rest of the week as daycare substitutes.
Now, I always look forward to Mardi Gras, but I was especially excited this year.
(You can see last year’s Mardi Gras post here.) Now, Ray, just shy of 2, is the perfect age. Not that I thought he would understand it, but I thought he’d at least be amused. The Friday before his school was let out, they were throwing a school-wide Mardi Gras parade
Ray’s class could ride in the parade in homemade wagon floats.
Despite school letters from the teacher saying “not to stress” about wagon decor, I accepted the Mardi Gras wagon decorating as a serious endeavor. Not only is crafting one of my few life talents, we’ve also attended this school long enough to know, that other kids would have good wagons. I will not forget the plethora of goodies Ray received for valentines day in contrast to the one sticker I had contributed for each of his classmates.
This was my opportunity to prove myself as a parent who cared about her child’s wellbeing. A chance to redeem my status post-valentines. And I was taking it.
After investing in four bottles of spray paint, and disassembling quite a few Blue Apron boxes, I was ready to go.
Carefully, and painstakingly I cut cardboard, sprayed, and hot glued beads throughout the week. I did this instead of cooking dinner, doing overdue laundry or ( and more realistically) sitting on the couch indulging in The Bachelor. All this to ensure Ray would indeed have a good wagon. True to my style of procrastination, I finished Rays wagon late thursday night.
I had reminded CJ to meet me at Ray’s school for the parade at least 10 times, still I was afraid he’d get caught up in some work meeting. But to my surprise, he was there, quite punctually.
We carefully unloaded Rays wagon and pulled it over to his classes loading area.
Now because his class is comprised of one and two year olds, they were escorted to their floats by a second grade class. Ray had been specifically assigned to a very sweet kid named Luke. Now sweet Luke, not only carried Ray outside with all his scrawny second grade might, he was also beyond excited to pull Rays wagon for him. Except, as soon as ray witnessed the ocean of commotion that was his schools version of Mardi Gras, he completely melted down. I tried to force him in his wagon, but this was like pouring gas on a fire.
So Instead, I carried him as he cried and cried.
All the while poor Luke pulled Ray’s empty wagon and threw bags of cookies to the crowd. Every now and then Luke would turn to Ray, who was attached to me like magnet, and say, “are you sure you don’t want to ride in your wagon??” To which Ray would shake his head as if to say, not just no, but hell no.
As we loaded Ray’s wagon back into my car, I was disappointed. I was sad that Ray hadn’t actually utilized my long labored float creation, and sad especially for sweet Luke who just wanted to be a good helper.
But later a friend messaged me on Facebook and put everything in perspective.
She said, “I’m sorry Ray didn’t like Mardi Gras, but oh, what a great memory” And it hit me. She was right.
Sometimes the worst moments, make the greatest memories.
I’ll always look back fondly and remember all the spray paint, excitement and effort went in to the empty wagon that sweet Luke pulled and Rays many tears over Mardi Gras 2019.