Sparkling baby steps, then sleeplessness

Some of you have asked for an update on how my son faired with the fireworks this year. Well, mother nature gave us a hand with things by diluting our streets with rain right about the time people normally start the fireworks off. But, earlier in the day, I decided to take the approach of getting my boy to at least dabble in some non-noisemaking ones, just to test the waters.

His Dad took him to the stand and they came back with snakes, sparklers, chickens (which are noisier than we remembered) and those spinning flowers. I was disappointed. No Chinese pagodas or volcanic cones? What's up with THAT?


Well, my son did OK with it all. Sure, he had some moments, like this one where even the hissing sound from one firework bothered him...but he still kept a smile on his face.

But, for the most part, he actually enjoyed it. Perhaps it was my husband's ingenious idea to completely incinerate an old broken car of my son's that got his mind off of being scared. Witness the meltdown for yourself:



The smoke bombs were a lovely touch and we enjoyed trying to set off snakes and those at the same time as well. This was what we ended up with in the end. We were pretty proud of ourselves, I must say.



And, in what was no surprise to this MomCat, my daughter seemed fearless, shouting "A-gihn! A-gihn! A-gihn!" immediately after my husband would shoot one off.



Now, that evening, the heavy rain early on signaled a good time for bedtime early. And, we got my son asleep before it dried up enough for anyone to blast over our house. But, my daughter woke up instantly. She ended up in our room. Then, about 11 o'clock, after a particularly bad round of them, my son screamed out. If you think I was kidding about his level of terror, then perhaps you should have been here to change the wet sheets that night. He obviously was too terrified to hop up and go to the bathroom, something that he never has trouble with normally.

So, the daughter was in our bed, the son moved to her bed, the husband chose to couch it and I braved the bed with my daughter, whose Indian name should be One Who Thrashes Sheets and Flails Arms Sporadically. The booms and bangs had ceased and it was time to settle in to slumber. Only, wait...for some reason I wasn't tired. And, I continued to not be tired for about 4 hours more, even after I got up and decided to start cleaning out my closet to wear myself out.

Sometime after 3 a.m., I finally crashed. And, then the kids woke up at 6:30 to horrible thunderstorms that scared them both. Yeah, I was a walking advertisement for sleep deprivation today. But, the rains continued washing all the firework debris out of our yard and our street, so I guess we can be thankful for that. Although, in three more days when it is still raining, we'll be building our arc and setting sail for Austin if it is up to me.

Hope yours was a happy and shining, phobia-free 4th!