Baby You're a Firework in Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of HAPPINESS

First I am going to tell you a poop story. So my son is potty training right? He has been now for 2 years straight. He’ll be 4 in October, and for the most part he knows when he needs to use the bathroom. Let me rephrase this, HE KNOWS WHEN, but he’s delayed and sometimes he just doesn’t make the connection on the right thing to do. I’ve been making him go bottomless. If we’re in the house, I don’t let him wear pants or underwear or he’ll use the restroom on himself. He might take himself pee, but he’d definitely poop on himself 9 times out of 10. If he has no bottoms on, he’ll take himself to the toilet 9 times out of 10. ANYWAY, so the other night I took my kids to the park. I ALWAYS make them go to the bathroom before we go anywhere. I tried to make him go poop but he was adamant that he didn’t need to go, so we walked to the park nearby (we have a school across the street from us, and BEHIND that school is the Boys and Girls club where my daughter went to Summer Camp last year, but they have a pretty cool playground). It takes maybe 5 minutes to get there (9 or 10 if you’re us because my kids walk slow). Anyway, so we go to the park and the kids are playing and my daughter says my son smells like poop all of a sudden (we’d maybe been there 10 minutes). I look at his shorts and sure enough there’s a brown stain quickly growing. And he goes “Mom look!” and points to a nice little pile of poop that slid out of his shorts (he had no pullup OR underwear on). I’ll probably never get that stain out LOL.

Our 4th of July was very event filled! We woke up Early and headed to the 4th of July Parade! Sometimes I wish my boyfriend would just listen to me instead of arguing. I mean, I say the things I say because I’m trying to help. I’m not a nagger nor am I an extrovert, so when I have something to say IT IS IMPORTANT. So when we got to where the parade was going to be, I tried to have my boyfriend park in 2 different areas. He ignored me because he wanted to park where he wanted to park....where I wanted us to park there was ample area for us to sit with our chairs and easy access to the sidewalk so he could get there (in his wheelchair). Last year when we went to the parade, we were in an area that was not handicap accessible, so he had to watch the parade from the parking lot where we parked while me and the kids sat up close and personal. Well, HIS idea was that it was more important that we park in a place where once the parade was over we could quickly get to the park where they were having activities after. So we parked in another parking lot that was not handicap accessible for him to get to the sidewalk or to where he could watch the parade with us. There was a steep grassy hill and there was no way I’d get him up it. I told him next year I’ll bring the kids by myself. What’s the point of him coming if I’m watching the parade by myself with the kids anyway. I mean he watched from the parking lot and took lots of pictures of the back of our heads but still…ANYWAY, I love parades, but I’m starting to feel like I can’t even enjoy them or see what’s in them because SO MANY PEOPLE THROW CANDY! I’m so old to be complaining about candy, but does every person from 1 organization need to be giving the same kids candy? I’m always so focused on making sure they’re out of the way for the parade while picking up a bazillion pieces of candy that I cannot enjoy the floats!

The park was fun. It is nice being one of the first people there because you get to get in and do all of the activities and get out. That was a good thing because it was definitely 100+ degrees that day. We went straight for the balloon animals since last year we ended up in a mile long line. After that we went to the inflatables (bouncy houses) and they did each one a few times. Then they were handing out free ice cream sandwiches. My daughter wanted her face painted and my son did not so I took him to the playground while my boyfriend and my daughter waited in line. We skipped a lot of the carnival game activities. Where they hold this event is pretty non-accessible for people in wheelchairs, and of course the coolest stuff is the furthest away. Add that to the fact that my children were starting to be whiny and we headed home. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. After lunch I took my kids out in the pool. Speaking of the pool, I was in my floatie and the kids pushed me so hard that I went right over the top and onto the ground and water came gushing down. I lifted it back up, but we definitely are going to have to take the water out and refill it because now that I’ve gone over the side (and my daughter did the very next day) it’s like that side of the pool is now shorter and there’s less water in the pool and it’s off balance and leaning to one side. My kids LOVE swimming and my little heart melts when I watch my 3 year old in the pool because this year he’s so tall and is really into doing his own thing in the water. He’s floating and putting his head back and completely getting his head wet. He doesn’t even do that in the bathtub! Just last year he would’ve asked me continuously to wipe his face if he got water on it. He might be ready for goggles soon. My daughter is learning to flip under water which is adorable.

My son was NOT okay with the loud boom of my neighbors illegal fireworks. LOL. They have the BIG fireworks. Imagine an urban inner-city street with cars coming down and then BOOM a large display firework goes off and you can actually feel the ashes falling down on you. Yeah, so my son immediately went back into the house in tears. I hadn’t even thought to give him my noise cancelling headphones I use when I’m sewing and want peace and quiet. LOL. He watched from the window though. IMAGINE my daughter and I’s disappointment when every firework I lit out of our $25 Sam’s Club bundle somehow would not light. It was windy, so I thought it was the wind. Nothing I was doing was working. I finally looked at the packaging and realized I WASTED $25 ON ONLY POPPERS! You know the ones where you pull the string and confetti comes out? Nothing on the box implied that it was only poppers. As a kid, my mom ALWAYS purchased Sams Club fireworks. I assumed it would be the same as when I was a kid, but it was not. Thank goodness I didn’t get the bigger box! I might also add that I lived in Michigan when I was younger, so maybe the rules of what fireworks can be sold in Sam’s is different. Luckily, after the park we had stopped at a Firework stand where I bought sparklers, smoke bombs and my daughters favorite little poop dog (you light it and lava looking poop comes out) because that’s ALL WE HAD! I was just trying to save myself the energy of going to a firework tent and choosing everything one by one and that stuff usually adds up pretty quickly. On a good note, my son enjoyed the confetti poppers yesterday when I took him outside to do what we saved for him.

We were supposed to go to the BIG firework display in town, but my boyfriend was so into his video games that when I kept mentioning whether or not we were leaving he kept saying yes. I was outside already ready to go with my bag and our drinks and everything just passing time with my daughter doing “fireworks” and not watching the time....by the time I brought it up again we had 15 minutes to get there and find somewhere to park so that we could see it. I just said forget it. Especially since we had our own personal neighborhood display from our neighbors. All in all it was a good day.