In-dependence Day

We're back from the trip to my parents' house for my mother's big birthday and the Independence Day parade (which is always on the Saturday closest to July 4th instead of (necessarily) the actual holiday). A good time was had by all. Miranda played "Happy Birthday to You" on her kazoo (which she had practiced for about half an hour in the van on the way up until Adam begged her to give it a rest for awhile), and Xavier presented my mother with drawings he had done in his eraser-marker book on the way up (of course, he kept the book.) I think Mom had a good time.

We celebrated the Fourth of July proper at home with our next-door neighbors; this is the second year in a row that we have had them over for dinner at our house, then drifted over to their front lawn to watch the municipal fireworks display, so it is probably now a tradition (if so, it is a good tradition.) One variation this year is that we decided to let the kids stay up and watch the fireworks (if they could manage to stay up that late.) At 9:30, we bustled the kids into bathrobes (in Miranda's case) and jackets (in Xavier's case, specifically a Tigger jacket that was part of a Halloween costume, complete with ears.) The fireworks display started up, and after ten minutes or so, Xavier and the neighbor's son announced that they wanted to go home, to bed, so the fathers took the boys in, leaving the wives and the two daughters. The neighbor started to talk to me about how a friend of hers had just had a baby, which led to birthing stories, which will probably guarantee that neither of the girls will ever have children of their own (hey, just doing our part for Zero Population growth.)

I had never noticed before just how long our town's fireworks display is, but it seemed to keep going and going, and finally Miranda started asking, "When is it going to be over?"

"Would you like for me to take you home?" I'd ask.

"There's no point," she'd reply, "because the noise would just keep me awake." (A pretty mature observation from a little girl who is watching fireworks with a dinosaur tucked under each arm.) A few minutes would pass, and then she would start over, "What is taking it so long? When is it going to be over?"

Maybe next year ...