hal and i took the kids to my in-law’s house yesterday for the 4th. we were expecting a bbq, our BIL, SIL and their kids, and maybe one or two of MIL’s friend’s to be over there celebrating. it ended up being MIL, FIL and our little family with no fired-up grill. this actually left hal and i feeling a bit disappointed.
i’ve never been a fan of the holiday. or for celebrating it with the city i live in. not for political reasons, but because fireworks are obnoxiously loud, visually fleeting, and a colossal waste of tax payer’s money – even tho i’m sure this is not the only way our city government squanders away our hard earned dollars. other reasons are: it is too hot here to be outside for longer than a minute and for hal and i, large crowds of drunk imbeciles is a major deterrent from these city events. i’m lucky that hal feels the same way as i do about the 4th and its potential evening activities. i think we’ll both stave off the participation in the big city fire works party for as long as possible.
I KNOW I KNOW, ITS FOR THE KIDS. this is something we hear often, “but the kids love it!” and you know what i say to that? i know they do, but… we are a family, and we do things that all of us will enjoy together. hal and i always keep the kids in mind, but we don’t neglect our own preference, needs, and desires to please our children. because the kids are more flexible than we are, they have less preferences and dislikes, they are far more willing to do what hal and i would like to do. and if we don’t expose them to a wide variety of activities, and only focus on what they would like to do, we’d do nothing but go to chuck-e-cheese. by the end of the year we’d either own half of ol’ chuck’s stocks or be filing for bankruptcy. hal and i hate chuck-e-cheese. it’s hell in a building.
i am bracing myself for the year we do take the kids to The Big Fire Works Display. when we drove past the bridge around 5pm, hours before the fire works go off, it was already crowded with sight seers, food stands, and activity wagons. i started making mental notes as to what we would need to bring with us, what stage in the kid’s development they need to be in before we do this, and how the hell would we survive it and enjoy it, too. food, water, chairs, some liquor for me, and lots of sparklers being on that list of must-haves.
i’m game for attempting these kinds of events at least once [hal could definitely live without the experience]. i’m just not trying to rush the fun. max and bella are close in age so its easy to wait until they are both older. sometimes, i feel like i have to do every little family event the city holds because that is what families are suppose to do, right? everyone does it! but its not really like that. and yeah, some of these things are better with older kids. hell, hal and i were annoyed by the pumpkin festival last year because we were worried about bella’s comfort level and there was just too many people. gah, those crowds of people all looking around for their next direction, yelling for their family members to get the hell closer, and eating huge legs of chickens with half of it smeared all over their face. gawd, i am such an old sour-puss! i listen to myself and i’m like, when the hell did i turn into my grandmother??? maybe i should have had children when i was in my early 20’s?
so anyways, last night hal and i bought our first batch of fireworks together at the grocery store. we did it with the anticipation of enjoying it. we did it for our kids. they got set off in the drive way at my in-law’s. the kids LOVED it. they were so excited. and hal and i got a kick out of seeing them get a kick out of seeing the fire works.
after our mini-display was over, max was sitting at the table looking kind of sad. hal asked him, “what’s wrong max? you look sad.” max said with a sigh, “i’m so frustrated because other people got more fireworks than we did.”
he could hear the noise outside and felt jealous at every sighting of an illegal pop in the sky. i think max is going to be the one who pushes hal and i to do new things and bella will be the one who teaches us to look at things differently. not that i’m pigeon holing my kids into these roles, its just that in so many ways they have already been like this.
the 4th was a good experience this year. and the kids fell asleep on the drive home, managing to sleep through the neighborhood snap, crackle, and pops.
