Weekend O' Fun

I'm still recovering from Charlie's birthday weekend o'fun. I'll go over the highlights, but I don't have any pictures just yet. I left my mom in charge of pictures and haven't had a chance to get any of them from her yet.

Our friends came in from Little Rock to celebrate the miracle man's first year on the planet. These people were holding the Hub and I up at this point last year--camping out in the waiting room, organizing visitors and food, and praying up a storm. You couldn't ask for more wonderful and faithful people to get you through a hard time. Having them here was especially nice because they "get it." They know how lucky we are to be here and to have achieved as much as we have.

We spent Friday running all around New Orleans--checking out the art and shops in the French Quarter, eating beignets, listening to live music, and looking for Harry Connick Jr.'s Music Village (we never found it, but the pictures on the Internet look very nice). I drove them by the place where the levies broke during Katrina, which still has a post-apocalyptic air about it. I didn't just show them the yuck, though. I showed them many areas which have come back nicely and also talked about neighborhoods that young people are flocking to--looking for opportunity in the destruction. New Orleans has always been a town of dichotomies and now is no different.

Saturday we had piles of family show up to celebrate Charlie's birthday. He received oodles of presents and I could not be happier. Therapy is a lot of fun when you have new toys to entice the baby with. Also, he's outgrowing everything he owns, so new clothes are like money in the bank. At one point Charlie threw a big fit--he didn't like being passed around like a potato, so I had to hold him for a while and calm him down. Could be brain-injury related, but it's just as likely that he's a squirrel like his daddy who once buried his head in his mother's chest for entire birthday party. He found icing yucky, but spent at least half an hour in complete delight listening to his grandfather read him nursery rhymes. My mom rose to the occasion by acting very stressed and hot--they took her uterus out a couple of years ago and since then she is ALWAYS hot. She kept fiddling with the air conditioner, exclaiming over the heat, and standing in front of the fridge.

So today we're recovering, assembling new toys, and eating leftover BBQ sandwiches. I'll add some pictures whenever I get the chance.