We made it through another 4th of July. Actually, all things being equal, this was probably a better 4th than we've had for awhile. Lovely Hurricane Alex blew all sorts of moisture up our way, so we had a really rainy extended weekend, which was a great deterrent for many of the firework-happy sociopaths in our fair city. See, our town doesn't really have any restrictions on fireworks. I imagine there are SOME restrictions, but you wouldn't know it from the constant barrage of noise that blankets the city for about five days of the year. I swear I'm not exaggerating when I compare it to a battle zone. Sunday night, there was a break in the rain for a few hours and everyone decided to make the most of it. We went outside after about two hours, and, because the wind had died down too, there was a pall of thick smoke covering our yard. It smelled like gunpowder and fear out there. Every animal in a five mile radius was cowering for shelter. And it sounded like we were being shelled by the Luftwaffe.
Add to that the fact that our neighbors across the street have spent as much as $2000 on fireworks in previous years, and it's probably no surprise that Gabe has developed a kind of shellshock for the holiday.
He's always had a thing about loud noises (unless he's the one MAKING the loud noise, obviously, then he has little to no trouble with it). The few times I took him out to watch people blowing crap up, he curled in close to me and refused to let go of whatever body part he could grab until I picked him up and took him away from the spectacle. The 4th of July is not his favorite holiday.
Fortunately, since he is pretty well wiped out by 8:00, we were able to get him into bed every night this weekend before the real heavy bombardments got underway. Thankfully, he's a heavy sleeper. Norah, not so much. She was waking up every thirty minutes or so during the louder parts of armageddon.
Once upon a time, I was rather fond of the 4th of July. It has never been one of my favorite holidays, but, being a boy, I enjoyed the blowing up of things growing up. I have memories (possibly fond, I haven't decided yet) of my brothers and I doing all the things boys do with fireworks--we melted action figures while trying to change their color with smoke bombs by trapping the toy and the bomb together in a capped coffee can (we were successful one time, changing a stormtrooper from white to a grotesque melange of burnt orange and red, every other attempt left the toy a mangled, fused, melted mess of mismanaged body parts), we blew things up, and we tormented pets and farm animals. We bought those little tanks and boats and were supremely disappointed when they failed to drive around and blow crap up like real tanks or boats (even when we set something RIGHT in front of them, they still failed to make something explode). And so forth. We saved up for months and bought our own fireworks (because Mom's idea of a good time was those super lame "snakes" and sparklers). A couple times, I even special ordered fireworks from neighboring Missouri because they had no statewide bans on some of the stupider, more self-destructive fireworks.
Even once I passed into adulthood, we still managed to buy fireworks every year (heavy on the Roman candles, because we liked to shoot them at each other--at a good distance, of course, which pretty much guarantees safety, as Roman candles are notorious for hitting everything BUT what you're aiming at if you're more than ten feet away from it).
Until we had kids. Now I hate the holiday. I think it's all a waste of time, money, and peace and quiet. It can't be a coincidence. Granted, we did have kids right about the time I was naturally progressing into the "cranky old guy" phase of my life--but I rather expected a love of blowing things up to be universal, something I could cling to even as I was limply flinging black cats with one hand while the other clung desperately to a walker.
Apparently, not so. I WANT to be able to say that I dislike the holiday now because of the safety concerns it will undoubtedly lead to when Gabe inevitably weighs the disadvantages of his fear of loud noises against the prospects of making things go BOOM and finds his fears lacking in comparative conviction. But, in the fairness of full disclosure, I'm afraid I have to admit that my feelings toward fireworks is entirely self-serving right now. In short, I hate them because they might disturb the sleep of my children, which, in turn, will deprive me of the time when they are out of my hair. For that, I fear, I can never forgive fireworks.
Also, this past week, Famous Uncle Ben and Aunt Skye came for a visit. Sadly, for reasons he probably can't even say, Gabe now only calls Ben "Uncle Ben," only once referring to him as "Famous," but that time he'd just heard us say it, so it obviously wasn't something he was doing instinctively. Oh well. It was a good visit, and Gabe had a great time--as he always does--with non-Daddy people in the house. Unfortunately, the kids really didn't do MUCH that was noteworthy through the entire time they were visiting, so no pictures to speak of.
Ben did, however, introduce the kids to the Whoopie Cushion, which was a resounding success. So much so, that Libby went to Wal-Mart and bought about a dozen of them--all of which the kids destroyed by over-zealously squashing them. Amusingly, Gabe calls them "toot balloons." I like that name MUCH better and think Whamm-O or whoever makes them should seriously consider a new marketing campaign built around the new name. I also expect my child to receive some royalties for his contribution.
We didn't get much video of them playing with the toot balloons, but we did manage to get one of Norah experiencing it for the first time.
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