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Okay – now hail the week that seemed like a rising mountain. From Endymion in my front yard to a birthday party of five year olds in my back yard, this has been a week. I woke Saturday morning with a fever and a headache and Tin said, “Are you not going to come to my birthday party?” I looked at him through the slit I was making with the covers over my head and said, “Give me thirty minutes.”

Then it was up and at ’em – there was food to make, chairs to assemble, balloons to buy, drinks to ice down, and a party to put on to celebrate Tin turning the big 5. My parents always made a big deal of our birthdays, and I am following their tradition. My finances may have dictated a more meager gathering, but Tin takes after me in this regard – he wanted everyone to come – and while we couldn’t have everyone, we had some and then some.

And at the end of the day, Tin crawled into the fetal position in his bed and cried his eyes out, “I WANT MY FRIENDS. I LOVE MY FRIENDS” then fell sound asleep.

Yep, near hysteria is the end to a great birthday party.

My gluten free cake didn’t survive being dropped on the floor, but I made a yummy salted caramel frosting from my friend’s recipe. Yep, it wasn’t pretty, but it tasted good and there was absolutely nothing left at the end.

I was highly impressed by the home-made cards and especially this one that took a lot of time:

All in all, we passed us a good time, and now mommy is dead, done, stick a fork in me. This morning, I woke with laryngitis and a deep need to stay in bed for the next five years.

I do have this to say about that – backyard birthday parties rock.

Today is Tin’s fifth birthday. He woke and repeated what he had told me last night, “I will turn five in my heart.” Today is another day for me to celebrate being his mother.

It rained all day yesterday so his trampoline is a little soggy and it is still cold outside, but it is warming up and soon we’ll be jumping away in the back yard.

Photo by Marc Pagani

A woman’s life is her own
until it is taken away
by a first, particular cry.
Then she is not alone
but a part of the premises
of everything there is:
a time, a tribe, a war.
When we belong to the world
we become what we are.

excerpt from Poem for a Daughter by Anne Stevenson

Yesterday, Endymion, one of the largest parades rolled down a block away from our house. There is always a sense of excitement anticipating a Carnival parade here in New Orleans, but Endymion is no ordinary parade – it’s a super krewe with a large following.

When I first moved into the Spirit House I instantly missed the front porch of the LaLa and kept thinking of how I was going to have a porch built – especially when there was so little space between the house and the sidewalk. I spent a good portion of the days I’ve lived in the Spirit House trying to design that porch into our lives.

Then Endymion came yesterday, and we got all the folding chairs we have and set them in front, and so did my neighbors, and the other neighbors with their newly built porch, well, they came down and set up their folding chairs on the sidewalk, and then the other neighbors, who have a porch, were straining to see, so they came down and spent the afternoon on their stairs. Because yesterday, was a day to be outside, and to be up close to the action – a touch away from all the costumed revelers walking to and from the parade.

A box full of colored chalk and markers kept the children busy under our legs while us adults sat and enjoyed the spectacle of a beautiful day, drinking wine, eating moros y cristianos, and chatting away about this and that. When the parade began to roll, you could hear the thunder of the marching bands and the crowd going nuts – and friends brought Tin with the other kids back and forth to the parade, returning with armfuls and bagfuls of booty – beads, frisbees, lighted sticks, stuffed animals.

All the while, I sat in my camping chair – like Mother Goose – watching the parade come to me.

Every one loves a parade, and this was the best parade I never went to.