Mardi Gras Fail - Passport Diaries

I don’t remember Mardi Gras being such a big deal in Pensacola—there were huge parades all weekend! Well, that’s what I hear. We opted out Friday night (the baby is a convenient excuse for evening/weekend inertia), and Saturday afternoon brought a booming thunderstorm. Sunday we had the good idea of having Surf Burger for lunch before the Krewe of Wrecks parade along Pensacola Beach. Buuuuuuut by the time we joined 100,000 of our closest friends there was no where to park within five miles of the parade route (and the parade wasn’t even starting for more than an hour!). Fail. So get this—we went home! Ha. Maybe next year. Maybe. I like that tourism doesn’t have quite the same urgency it seemed to in Japan. Blame it on the baby. Or maybe we’re just tired.

Speaking of babies, we’ve been enjoying king cake since Epiphany. YUM with coffee. The tradition is to eat king cake during Carnival season (between January 6 and Ash Wednesday) in honor of the three wise men bringing gifts to baby Jesus. I think. You hide a little plastic baby Jesus in the cake and whoever gets it in their slice brings a king cake to the next party. Or is king of the day. Something like that.

In other news, I put up some spring and Easter decorations! We made huge progress on getting the house all unpacked this long weekend, so instead of looking like we’re moving in, it just looks like we need to pick up the bedroom and office a little. Success! Here are Chris and Mouse in the sunshine on our nice patio.

Meanwhile, Pounce decided to keep Isaac’s onesies warm under the changing table. Uhhhhh, thanks, Pounce.

Isaac started sleeping through the night occasionally…but I still don’t, thanks to the construction hammering away next door at dawn most mornings. Today at the grocery store he shrieked with laughter every time I said, “shredded cheese!” Other new talents include chewing on his socks and rolling over at will. He was fussing yesterday evening so I felt my way into his room in the dark to try to pat him back to sleep and see if he was stranded on his back. I reached blindly into his crib and my tiny baby’s hand closed around my finger. Aawwwwwww. Isaac and I are learning to communicate in new ways, such as: he’s strong enough now to twist around and suck on my arm when he’s hungry. He can pick up his toys and pass them smoothly from one hand to the other, then into his mouth. Some days he sort of has a routine. He’s a good sport about driving out to the beach and back for no apparent reason. And next year, he’s going to lure a lot of beads our way.

I’d noticed Isaac looking intently at my food lately, especially a delicious gala apple I had at lunch the other day. So I mixed up some rice stuff, thinking he’d just spit it out. Wrong! We barely needed the “Mommy Loves Me” bib because he was all snarf snarf snarf!

Please sir, I want some more!