Krewe of Thoth 2011

On Sunday we went to Thoth in New Orleans. It was our one and only Mardi Gras parade this year, and it was everything we wanted.

A picture's worth a thousand words, so here we go....

(Berry had to regularly unload the beads; they weighed her down. Miss Sarah helped.)

 

Dance!

It's Mardi Gras!!

(Why did the King Cake Fairy not visit me?  I've been so good!)


Have a festive Fat Tuesday, everyone.....


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Sucré = sweeeeet

Googling "best espresso New Orleans" was a great idea.

Yes, googling "best" anything usually leads to a lot of random sites and useless stuff but in this case it led me to a goldmine of a thread on Chowhound – and among the recommendations was Sucré.

Sucré is my newest New Orleans crush.

The lattes are beautiful, the cappuccinos are first class, the food is art...

...and every last detail is beautifully designed.  Visual feast is not putting it too strongly.

And the staff were lovely; and not just tolerant of the kids but openly welcoming.

I'm going back for more coffee. Much more coffee.  And a tshirt.

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Ain't easy being three

No doubt New Orleans saw many folks more deserving of a time-out than Berry last weekend – but their mothers weren't there for the enforcing.

So, word to the wise: Don't take your mama with you to the Big Easy.

Bang for your buck

It turns out the more you don't post on your blog, the more you can't post on your blog. I have all the usual excuses of too much work and too many children (depending on the hour and the mood, two can be too many) and the upshot is: I got stage fright. We were doing all these interesting things and I'd think, I can't write about that, it's been ages since I've written and I'm all out of practice and all my events are out of order.

So I didn't write... but suddenly I've remembered, when it doubt – pad with pictures.

Now without further ado (a phrase my high school headmaster loved, and which always preceded more ado), here's all the stuff and all the photos, in no particular order.


After determinedly avoiding long car trips for the whole of Kickbaby's eight months, we ran into Nathan's mom's 60th birthday. She lives in Texas, so we had to man up and drive the technically-ten-hours there. I say "technically" because that's how long it takes sans kids. With two kids, you have to make many stops and also stay overnight in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Our first night back in Texas, we went to the Fort Worth Rodeo.


Ever since, Berry has been saying "Remember at the radio, that clown did fall off that yittle yittle horse?" Yep, a two-second prank fall was the highlight of the radio.


There was a midway too. The midway had many, many highlights. Nathan took her on the Teacups, and the spinning strawberries, and bought her pizza, and we took her to the petting zoo. She was most taken with a baby rabbit that she found hiding behind a broom at the exit. Of course.


In Dallas, the kids met their cousin little P for the first time. She's just turned one, so she and Kickbaby spent their time crawling and getting into mischief and experimentally pulling each other's hair.


To be fair, Kickbaby did do the bulk of the hair-pulling. He's excitable like that. Berry spent a lot of time hugging them both and saying, in her best Southern sorority-girl voice, "Awwwwwwwww, they're so so cuuuuuuuuute!"


A little while back, Berry got her first hair cut. I took her to see our friend Natalie in Ocean Springs and when I told Berry where we were going she said, "Is Miss Natalie going to paint my hair?" Just another reminder that this three-year-old has indeed seen too much hair-colouring on the salon section of What Not To Wear.


I took the kids to New Orleans during mardi gras for the Krewe of Thoth parade, emboldened by the fact that it was a day parade and by the fact that Stu and Rikki live right on the parade route. Friends, food, facilities – right there.

Berry had some King Cake, and almost tottered under the weight of her bazillion beads.


Kickbaby ate organic rice snacks and charmed a couple of nine-month-old girls from the comfort of his stroller.


And I survived. A good day all round.


I spent a lot of time with the letterpress, printing hundreds of beautiful baby announcements. More on that (and pictures) when I feel sure they've all been sent out. I'd hate to steal any thunder. Inserting random Berry picture here, so I'm not tempted to give any sneak peeks....


We went to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, for the traditional Cajun Mardi Gras which is entirely different to the New Orleans mardi gras. But I have so many pictures from that day, I'll have to make it into a separate post.

Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath...

The Deep South Tour – 2008

In general, the Americans were quite dismayed when they heard that Jules and Shelley would only be seeing Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and a teensy edge of Florida on their first visit to the States.

It reminded me of my first six months in New Orleans, when people would ask, "So where else in the US have you lived?" and I'd say, "Louisiana is the only place I've lived since I left Australia."
"Oh," they'd say gravely, "I'm sorry. The rest of America is Really Not Like This." (Trust me, I could hear the capitals.)

If I had limitless funds and a nanny for the two-year-old and someone else to haul Kickbaby around under their shirt, I would've loved to take Jules and Shelley to other cities I love, like Portland and Seattle and Santa Fe and Atlanta and New York, and to places I'd love to see – like Savannah and Charleston and Chicago and Washington D.C.

But with Berry and Kickbaby in tow, we improvised our own itinerary – one that will never quite be replicated by anyone else, ever.


We made Jules sick with the American Breakfast at Waffle House; we made Shelley sick with rich soul food at the Praline Connection (Australian stomachs just aren't built for Southern fare); we stalked the wedding cake house on St Charles Avenue in the Garden District so Shelley could get the perfect picture (the upside-down one just didn't cut it); and we compiled a veritable photo essay on the hazards of New Orleans' crazy footpaths.


We sat out a pouring should've-been-sunny Saturday in Perdido Beach, we built sandcastles with Berry, we went all over New Orleans' famous French Quarter by day, and by night Nathan (a French Quarter bar expert if ever there was one) took Jules and Shelley to some of his favourite haunts. There was jambalaya at Napoleon House and a streetcar ride down St Charles and frisbee in Audubon Park and the best Southern-diner food ever at Camellia Grill. And last but not least, I enthralled Shelley with the appalling-ness of Wal-mart. She berated herself for leaving the camera at home at least 18 times in that one trip, especially when she spied the jumbo jar of pickled pigs' ears. You think I'm joking; I'm not.

It was an unconventionally action-packed two weeks – certainly not the way Fodor's or Rick Steves or Lonely Planet would've done it.

And all I can say about that is: thank goodness.

A hole to fall in

If you're in the mood to sue a city, here's your chance.

This rather breathtaking hazard is about half a block off Decatur in New Orleans' French Quarter. It's hard to tell from this picture how truly, bone-breakingly deep the hole is – but believe me, even after living in New Orleans for four years, I was impressed.

So anyway, good luck to anyone who falls in this beauty and tries to get justice... New Orleans scoffs at your pothole indignation and says, "We're built on a swamp. Watch where you're going."

Being two / acting two

At the Astor Crowne Plaza in New Orleans, Berry proved that even busy lobbies are fair game when you're two and you need to make a point. Cold marble floor? No worries – the message is the same.

Yes, that's her... the crumpled bit of pink at the bottom of the photo above.

And here's a close-up – you know, in case there's any doubt that she really meant it.


I almost wish we could say Berry was the worst-behaved child in the hotel that weekend, but sadly – no. We (and Kirk and Pauline) were deeply unlucky to be given rooms in the same wing as a completely appalling University of Alabama fraternity in town for a social... so at 2am the halls were filled with scrawny shirtless 18-year-olds running around with buckets of ice, drunkenly bellowing at locked doors and fighting; girls carrying their shoes and crying; and exasperated security guards trying to herd them all away.

At 3am we were treated to some kid, completely smashed, pounding on the door next to ours: "Evaaaaaan! Evan open the f------ door! Evan you m------------! Evaaaaaaan! Open! [BANG] The! [BANG] Door! [BANG] Evan you d-------, this is the lowest thing you've ever [BANG] done! Evaaaaaaaaaan!"

And as I dialled security again, I couldn't help thinking: at least when Berry threw a tantrum, she was acting her age.

Adventures all over

My parents never stay for long enough – with five kids on four continents, it's tricky – and this time they were only here for nine days. Still, Berry managed to give her Australian Grandma and Grandad (or Ga-gum and Ad-dad, as she prefers to call them) a pretty decent tour of Louisiana.


We went to New Orleans for streetcars and shotgun houses, antique shops and jazz bands, Southern food, Uptown charm and dirty Bourbon Street.


We went to Breaux Bridge for swamps and sleeping alligators, Cajun music and Crawfish Town, and to see Berry's Grandpa and Tine as well as her great-grandparents who live there. Berry focused on the important things, like squirrels and balloon animals, murals in restaurants, eating, trying on Tine's jewellery, making friends with Woo-woof, and organising her various grandparents: "Si-down, Ad-dad!", "Draw, Papa, draw!".


She also took very seriously the job of keeping Grandma awake on drives: "Wake up, Ga-gum! Wake up!" over and over again. Knowing my mum the way I do, I could've told Berry it was a pointless task. Mum will be wide-awake at 2am, phoning her far-flung kids and answering emails, but daytime rolls round and she'll nod off at the drop of a hat. Driving around town on the second day of their trip, we were laughing at her extraordinary napping abilities. "I'm feeling surprisingly awake, actually," Mum said brightly from the back seat. Thirty seconds later, she was sound asleep. So Berry had a full-time job on her hands.


But sometimes naps catch up with even the best anti-sleep crusader. Family trips are exhausting, and although Berry fell asleep just in time to miss a Cajun music jam we knew she'd love, no one had the heart to wake her.

Not even Ga-gum.


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Everyone loves a parade

Marching bands and Mardi Gras Indians, wild dancing and tipsy girls with beads – Berry's first parade had it all.

Berry "danced" in her stroller (well, the top half of her danced) and she got a decent dose of French Quarter craziness.

If we all get over these colds, we'll take her to some real Mardi Gras parades Uptown. Laissez les bon temps rouler....

Geaux Tigers!

Berry and I are deeply grateful that Ohio State lost the BCS national championship game. If LSU hadn't won, Nathan might've had a nervous breakdown.

Nathan's never met a sport he didn't love, but he's particularly passionate about college football. Unbeknownst to them, Nathan has been 'coaching' the LSU Tigers through our television screen for several years. He just wouldn't have coped if they'd let him down – especially playing "at home" (sort of) in the Dome.

We went to New Orleans on the weekend so he could "get the atmosphere", and so that Berry could give LSU defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey a few tips before the big game.

She didn't mind that he was a cardboard cut-out – he had balloons, and that's all that counts.

Secret garden

I walked straight past it, even though I was looking everywhere for the sign. My favourite coffee place can be tricky to find.

It's on my beloved Royal Street, right by the famous Court of Two Sisters, but it's set back from the footpath, through a dark cool tunnel and behind a courtyard garden – the way I've decided every coffee house should be.


We discovered Royal Blend back when we lived in the French Quarter, and I went there for breakfast with Berry and her nanna when we stayed in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. It still has every bit of its charm.

I wanted to ask the girl serving how long it had been there, how old the building was too (like everything in New Orleans, it probably used to be something else) but she kept disappearing – to work! imagine! – so we contented ourselves with watching the fish and seeing barely another soul the whole time we were there. And those we did see were quiet souls.

Which is exactly the way I like it.

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Pink pink pink pink pink

I never thought much of pink. When I was pregnant with Berry I had her room painted a sage colour, decorated it in an Australian Outback theme and vowed never to fall victim to the lures of pretty-pretty pink.

But when the little girl leads... well, how long could I hold out? Her Grandpa just finished painting her bedroom this gorgeous Alyssum Pink (see? I said "gorgeous"!) and hung her Land Of Nod pink pillow-castle in the corner, next to the white dresser full of... pink clothes. Ah, well.


Berry's Nanna was in town last weekend so of course we stopped at The Magic Box in New Orleans. She came away with some Hello Kitty paraphernalia – another thing I said I'd never sway on. She also made her Uncle Jules proud – from afar – by playing a few very careful tunes on a baby (baby-baby) grand piano.

At least it wasn't pink.

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