After our camping weekend, both kids were tired. I had to wake them both in order to get on with our Fourth of July celebrations. All I had to do was ask, “Sophia do you want pancakes?” And her eyes just popped right open. I had to make sure she understood that we wouldn’t be eating the pancakes at home though. Our newly adopted tradition began with a pancake breakfast in the park hosted by the fire department. We went last year for the first time and had to wait an hour after we had finished eating before Sophia begin eating hers. Sophia did much better with it this year. She was leery of the crowds of people but she ate her pancakes with gusto and finished at the same time we did.

There was a live auction after breakfast. We waited around for that because they had a desk that I wanted. Wouldn’t you just know it, the desk was the one item on the block that everyone else was also eyeing? Most everything was going for the opening bid or only had one other bidder. The desk had about five people. The price went up so quickly that I wound up not making a bid at all. It’s back to craigslist for me. I’ve been drooling over some antiques for a while.

We went home for a while to shoot off the six dollars of kiddy firecrackers I purchased. I’m such a big spender.

Typically my engineer is absurdly cautious of new or different activities and plans his actions to such a detailed degree that all the whimsy of such things as possibly blowing one’s self up with firecrackers is completely removed. To-do lists, spreadsheets, rules and regulations – they more than outline his life, so it really surprised me the number of times I had to yell at him to, “TAKE THE MATCHES WITH YOU AFTER YOU LIGHT THE FIRECRACKER!”

But that’s not as bad as the one time that he lit the firecracker next to the pile of unlit, as in the-never-been-fired, firecrackers. Note to self, if I buy firecrackers next year I need to get those burn sticks for the safety of the grown up engineer. Luckily all the firecrackers I bought were the craptastically lame-ass kiddy kind. The kind of lame fireworks that only people truly talented could use to blow themselves up. Like the talented engineer who gives himself a splinter with a potato. That sort of Nerf-talent.

Sophia enjoyed the firecrackers even though a couple of times she said, “That too loud for my ears”. Her favorites were the snaps, the firecrackers that you just through on the pavement and they, well they snap. Those were the only ones that I allowed her to handle.

I thought about buying sparklers, but I didn’t. She probably would have been ok with them, but I’m a total wuss when it comes to my child and fire. Maybe next year. You know, when she has a little brother running around wanting to do all the same things his big sister can. That’s a grand idea! Yeah I think I just talked myself out of buying them, again.

The next event of the day was the parade. It took a lot longer than I thought it would for such a small town. At first Sophia didn’t see what the big deal was about going to the parade and didn’t want to get out of her stroller, but then the floats and tractors started coming by and we pointed out that candy was being thrown…she perked up immediately. Kurt went with her closer to the curb of the street and the child caught on to the finding and picking up of candy quickly. After the parade as we were walking up to the car I asked her, “What did you like the most about the parade?” There was no hesitation in her answer, “CANDY!” She made a better candy haul at the parade than she did for Halloween, but that’s not saying much since she never did get out of her stroller for trick-or-treating last year.

It was back to the pancake park for another event, which if they don’t go back to the original format, we won’t be participating in again. The money goes to good things of course, but part of it is the fun of watching a bazillion rubber ducks float down the river. It’s called the Duck Dash. The first ducks to make it to the boom win prizes, but that’s not how it was done this year. Nope, this year, the first year we actually went to see it, they had two grown men dressed as ducks tossing rubber ducks into a net. One man tossed a few ducks and the other caught them in a net. The netted ducks were the winners. It was as lame as it sounds. Maybe even worse.
A quick trip to McDonald’s for dinner gave us the first ever doll that Sophia named herself. “What’s her name?” Kurt asks.

“Frog.”

I’ve asked her again a few times since then and each time she tells me the doll’s name is “Frog”.

The Fourth of July finally was of course the fireworks display. Sophia was so tired from our camping weekend that half way through the display she was asking to go to sleep and even pointing to the ground saying, “Can I sleep there?” I wasn’t sure if she enjoyed it this year until a couple days later she asked me, “Can we see fireworks?”
“No, that’s only on the Fourth of July.”
“Can it be Fourth of July?”

Sleepy Lukas whose bedtime is typically 7pm stayed awake for the whole thing. Both kids slept in on the 5th. Lukas didn’t wake up for the day until 9 and Sophia, 10:30. That, right there, was my highlight!

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