We Love a Parade...

Sometimes you just can't say no. When my sister Treasa called last week to invite us to march with her in the local St. Patrick's Day Parade, John and I looked at each other and said, "Louis will love it."

Marching through a city--and Louis loves the city--while music plays and crowds of people cheer? Having an assigned task and role? Seeing all kinds of new and interesting things? The activity was practically designed for our son.

With a forecast for a sunny, springlike day, Treasa's reminder that our parents own a green wagon, and a free afternoon, we had to say yes. We dug out our green clothing, let Grandma fill in with a green shirt and Irish flag for Louis, and we prepared for our son's first parade.

No one was disappointed.

Especially not Louis the Leprechaun.

Before we started out for the parade, we decorated the wagon, which Baba wanted to name "The Patty Wagon." Then we loaded it in our new (to us) minivan and went to town where we put a lot of miles on that wagon. Baba would tell you at least 10 miles. I think it might be closer to 5, but I don't really know. This would have been a good day to wear a pedometer.

 

Being in a parade means waiting for the parade to begin. This was just fine with Louis since he didn't really know what a parade was--in books there are elephants and clowns and juggling--and waiting for a while meant we could walk around and explore. We saw someone dressed as a crocodile. We saw a man carrying a stuffed leprechaun on his back. We watched men in Revolutionary War soldier costumes playing the drums and Louis said, "Mama, I want one of those drums." We saw an antique fire engine and green dogs. We watched people tossing flags and pom-poms.

When we went to look at a statue of a man sitting on a horse, we met a 74-year-old man playing the most beautiful shiny horn. He played it just for Louis and let him admire it up close. We danced to "When the Saints Come Marching in." We watched some Mummers playing accordions, and Louis couldn't take his eyes off of them. "Another song?" he asked when they stopped.

He was in awe.

And that was before the Oriole Bird arrived and wanted his photo taken with Louis.

Louis received many compliments on the wagon and on his own attire, but--in typical Louis fashion--he didn't care. He took seriously that he had a job to do. Baba had him practice waving his flag this morning so he would be ready when we went past the crowds.

But we had to wait for a while before we got to the flag waving. So he and Aunt Treasa chatted about hats. (I like this photo because it looks like they are singing "My Wild Irish Rose," or something equally Irish.)

I don't know why, but we ended up bringing more hats than we had people in our group of four. And you may notice that Louis's outfit evolved as the day wore on--partly because the wind kept blowing his 79-cent plastic hat away and partly because the climate changed as we walked through town.

 

As former (in my case, at least) Irish stepdancers, Treasa and I have marched in several St. Patrick's Day parades together, but we haven't been in one together for...well, a while.

I am fairly certain John has never marched in one, so the experience was new for both my boys, but you would never have known it to look at them--though you can probably tell that one needs a nap and you might be able to guess that the other one would happily have accepted one.

A few days ago we tried to tell Louis about St. Patrick, though I don't know that he understood why anyone would want to chase snakes away. When I told him we would be wearing green in the parade, he said, "I want to wear red." What he could understand--and latched onto right away--was that the wagon came with cupholders.

And he was perfectly content to sit in the rather ritzy wagon and take everything in.

He even consented to more photos than I would have expected--including a family photo, something of a rarity around here.

 

When the parade finally started, Louis waved his flag steadily for block after block, with only minor prompting from his father. About halfway through the parade, Louis turned to me and said, "Mama, where's the parade?" Um. Oops. "Louis, we are the parade. We're in the parade," I told him.

Luckily there is plenty to see, even when you are marching. There are dogs and people with funny wigs and green hair. There are tall, tall buildings that reach up to the sky. There are lots of people waving. The bagpipes in front of us were playing. And when we went under an enormous American flag, waving from between two hook-and-ladder fire trucks, Louis couldn't stop staring at the trucks and the ladders. "There are two fire engines," he said.

Even when he started getting tired near the end of the parade, he made sure the flag stayed in the air--most of the time.

 

When we reached the end of the route, Louis climbed out of the wagon--but not a moment before. Then he used the flag the way he had probably been wanting to use it for the past few hours. He pulled some kind of fencing/magician's wand move and made his hissing "Dark Vader" noise.

Then he took over steering the wagon.

When we arrived back at my parents' house, we were hungry for our corned beef and cabbage. Louis was exhausted. When he saw that his father was preparing to put the wagon away, he burst into tears. He wanted another ride. Apparently riding in the wagon for most of the day just wasn't enough. So Baba, who had been on his feet for most of the day obliged for a quick neighborhood walk.

Then they came back to the house, and Louis gave Baba a demonstration of wagon handling.

It was a long day and--even with the time change--everyone in my household (except me) was asleep by 8 p.m. But Louis will be talking about the parade for days to come.

And next year? He'll be wearin' the green again. But you can bet your shillelagh he'll want to pull the wagon.