“Too many parents make life hard for their children by trying, too zealously, to make it easy for them.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

I’m not saying that throwing a carnival for the kiddies is making life easy for them — it’s making life more fun for them, for sure. But
damn, I’ve put less hours into major projects at work than I have for this carnival. We’re organized, no doubt about it. There are four of us on the committee, plus a couple of auxiliary members. We’ve rounded up a bunch of volunteers, wrangled donations, planned out games, bought bags of toys (the whoopee cushions, I’ve heard, are especially popular), made up a schedule, gathered bag after bag of empty shoeboxes. (It’s a Mardi Gras theme — YES I KNOW IT’S LENT NOW, sorry!! — so the kids can make miniature “floats” out of shoeboxes that they’ve decorated with tissue paper and glitter.) They can also make or buy masks, and they get free tickets if they come in costume.

Wacky Boy is going as a bumblebee (thank you, A! I love the little plastic stinger on the butt), and Wacky Girl is going as a princess, or a witch. (She takes after mommy, awwwww…)

Wacky Daddy took the day off! Hot dog! He’s out now picking up cakes & doughnuts for the much-vaunted Cakewalk. Mama Em and one of her baby monkeys are doing the modern version of “hunting and gathering” for the same stuff in a different part of town. (You’re familiar with the Cakewalk concept, yes? I’ve explained the game to about ten adults and kids in the last week. Poor things, never having done the Cakewalk before! Numbers on the floor, kinda like musical chairs. The band plays, everyone walks, then the band stops and if you’re on the Lucky Number you get to pick out the cake — or pie, which A and I like
better — of your choice.)

(Carnival tip: Make friends with the bakery managers at your local grocery stores. If they won’t give it to you for free — many of them will, though — at least they’ll save you a shopping cart or two of day-old half-priced stuff. Carnival tip #2: Kids and adults, too, go completely bonkers for a carnival. Surly, drunken parents you never thought would volunteer for anything are suddenly sunny and smiley and telling you they’d love nothing more than to work the beverages table.

“We’re having iced tea AND lemonade? Coooool!”

We’re having a Cajun dinner (gumbo, dirty rice and beans, sausages, Moon Pies, the works), Cajun music, games, door prizes, a raffle, and a parade at the end. I think we’ve got about forty cakes, pies, and various forms of packaged sugar for the cakewalk, plus we’re ordering a huge sheet cake, decorated in Mardi Gras colors, to serve with the dinners.

Crazy? You bet.