Mardi Gras fun- Daisy Style

Mardi Gras kicked off here with a slightly rainy Feb 14th parade. Many of the floats were Ike based (including one covered in blue roof tarps with riders dressed as clowns with FEMA hats). Caroline and I attended a friend's party at the Gaido's hotel before the parade. Caroline sat in a chair outside the hotel room eating hotdogs (her shoe size grew the next week so I guess she really was that hungry) and every adult that went by "beaded" her. Before the parade even started she had more beads than one girl needs. She told her IKE story to the party next door and they gave her a bag of ten DOZEN beads.

The second weekend of Mardi Gras is dedicated to kids and pets with the annual Krewe of Barkus and Meoux and Krewe of Munchkin parades. When I took on Daisies I had this crazy idea that we should be in the Munchkin parade. Since we did not have the money to pay for a float we cut a deal with the organizers and walked for $1.50 per kid. We borrowed a banner from the council office and gathered beads from past parades (including the 24 dozen Caroline got the first weekend) and put on our happy faces.
I remember parades as a kid as fun events. There was frequent stopping for bands to play or groups to catch up. Not so in Munchkin Mardi Gras land. I had 10 girls, 10 parents, two wagons and 243 DOZEN beads. We were followed by the "big girls" as Caroline calls them- 20 brownies and 6 juniors from the island who had their own beads.

My girls practiced balling up a string of beads and gently tossing it to a neighbor. My girls practiced staying in lines and between the poles (the parents carried PVC pipe to keep the girls in and the crowd out). My girls practiced waving and smiling and then the parade started and my girls forgot everything. They raced around and threw beads from the end (whacking their neighbor in the process). They ran under the pole out into the crowd to give beads to a friend. They threw entire dozens into the crowd because they were too excited to peel the paper off that tied them together. My ten sweet little girls threw 243 DOZEN beads to the screaming crowd in 7 blocks.

Those tiny blue shirts are my girls. By block 8 we were at least a full block behind the float ahead of us. We just couldn't keep up. By block 15 the distance had widened to almost three blocks. The big girls still had beads but the crowd just kept yelling "throw us cookies!" or " We want Thin Mints." One of the girls and her mom had to hop out because the Daisy was so tired of walking. By block 18 several Dads had joined in and were carrying their sweet exhausted Daisies. Caroline was calling to Duncan (Hunter's dad) who was walking with us along the sidewalk to carry her even though she could see the store at the end of the parade.

I was incredibly proud of my girls who walked two miles in the parade and then made the unanimous decision that they would definitely be spending their cookie money on a float next year.