Fireworks of Multiple Types

I’ve mentioned before that I have awesome friends Tiffanie and Don who, because they are insane, get up early on the Fourth of July, drive into Boston, bring a cooler of drinks, snacks, a sunshade and set up to spend the day on the Esplanade.  They do all this to watch fireworks at 10:30 at night.  The best part of this is that I can show up at 7 or 8 pm with my gaggle of children and watch fireworks from an incredible spot, while sipping an ice cold drink and eating a snack.

My plan went a little awry this year.  Not at first, at first it was awesome.  My husband’s aunt was in town visiting my husband’s cousin and her husband.  They mentioned that they were going to meet up with another couple and see the fireworks.  I told them which two speakers my friends were between and that I’d call them when we got there to meet up.  Well, in a crowd of over 700,000 people THEY FOUND EACH OTHER!  They have NEVER MET and they found each other!  Unbelievable!

We got there later.  My husband dropped us off by Storrow Drive and found a garage to park in while I took the kids and tried to find everyone.  Unfortunately we walked a while before we even got to speaker one.  I should have realized that Will was on edge when he started crying when his dad didn’t get out of the car with us.  I explained that his dad would come after he parked the car and thought everything was fine.  But we walked and walked and there were so many people – too many people for Will.  He doesn’t even like to be in a room with many people.  And Will started to make his displeasure with his surroundings known.  He started yelling and pinching me, really pinching me.  Digging his nails in my arm (I still have the marks) kind of pinches, over and over again.  I starting holding his hands together, saying “calm hands” while trying to balance two bags and keep track of my three other kids.  By the time I got to speaker number three I wanted to go home.  By the time I got to speaker number five I threatened that he could not play with his iPad if he keeps pinching.  After that he tried harder not to pinch but there were so many people and he was freaking out.

We finally found our group and I collapsed in a chair with stinging arms.  This is the point at which I would almost like to kiss Steve Jobbs.  Will sat in his chair and played with his iPad until I took it away from him to force him to watch the fireworks.  It was sooo preferable to the last time we went when we pulled him out of the Charles River four times!  Unfortunately, the dark side of Will’s obsession with the iPad was that it (possibly combined with his understandable aversion to using porta potties) distracted him from going to the bathroom and he pooped in his pants.

Fabulous!  My husband and I walked him to a porta potty and stripped him down.  Can I tell you how disgusting that was?  Pretty disgusting!  I started squirting disinfectant on the wet wipes and wiping him down.  I tell you that when I was 18 I never saw myself stripping down my BAREFOOT child in a porta potty, with a flashlight stuck down in my bra, while my husband held a bag for me to put poopy clothing in.  Honestly, if either of us had had that vision we might not of gotten married.  Now, of course, my only fear is that I’ll get poop on me – the rest . . . not so big a deal.

And after I stopped hyperventilating about what my child touched in the porta potty and if I had used enough disinfectant gel (I’m pretty sure I did) – the fireworks were pretty awesome!