Someone Crashed My Fourth of July Party

I know that technically “It wasn’t MY party,” and yes, I like all the people that came but seriously … I have a few expectations and one of those is that the world revolves around me.  For the last several years my personal party planners Tiffanie and Don get up in the wee hours of the morning, schlep a couple coolers of food, a canopy, and a tarp to mark our area and drive into Boston to hold a prime spot for me to watch the fireworks.  That way I can mosey my way into Boston at a realistic hour, enjoy an icy drink and watch fireworks with little cleanup before heading home.  

But this year the pleasure of my company wasn’t enough apparently (whatever) and four other families came too.  Darn it!  I had this completely worked out and now these four families are going to tell four families, and those four families are going …  I’m watching my sweet deal slip through my fingers.  Tiffanie is going to have to bring me a really good treat next year to console me!

The fireworks, of course, were spectacular!  This year was much more enjoyable because I left Will at home.  I asked Jake if he’d stay home and watch Will and surprisingly he said yes.  Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth I didn’t press my luck by asking, “Are you sure?”  I might not have gone this year if I had to bring Will because it was so painful to do last year both literally (because he dug his fingernails into my arms) and figuratively (because of  … uh, multiple issues).

We’ll see how many people come next year.  I might have follow Tiffanie around and tell people they decided not to go.

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!

The (Fourth) Grumpy Dwarf

Because I am an idiot, I let Lizzy stay up to watch a concert and movie in the common last night as part of our town’s Fourth of July celebration.  Because I am even a greater idiot glutton for punishment we are driving into Boston to watch the fireworks tonight.  I had her lay down with my husband (our version of Snow White) while he was taking a nap.  I gave Lizzy her pillow pet and blanket and told her she had to rest for a half hour.  When I peeked in, my husband was sound asleep, Lizzy’s head popped up and she asked if she could get up.

And yes, I am the wicked queen but the dwarfs are winning, and it would probably take an apple liberally laced with Benadryl to get Lizzy to take a nap at this point.

The 4th of July

Jake woke us up early so we could go watch the hot air balloons. But he was ready to leave five minutes after they took off. We drove him crazy by insisting on staying 20 minutes longer to watch them.

We had a family picnic that ended with a giant water fight. Although ... when I think about it many things end with a water fight at Jane's house. On Saturday when we irrigated their huge, circa 1800s garden we had a water fight which was slightly less fun then last year as Danielle was injured and could not participate (although she did push her dad in the ditch once). Lizzy surfed down the ditch on top of three sleds and Jake tried to squirt all his cousins with a squirt gun. This year I only got mildly wet as opposed to last when I was soaked after Charlie dunked me.

I guess they know how to have fun in the 1800s! Oh, and some people really like to shoot off illegal fireworks in Utah.

The 4th of July

For the first time in 8 years we did not go into Boston to watch the fireworks. We were exhausted from Six Flags and the people who usually drive in at 8:00 am to get a great spot right on the Charles didn’t. So, we couldn’t drive in at 6:00pm, eat the snacks and drinks someone else hauled in it, and have a front row seat for the fireworks. Doing it ourselves seemed like too much effort. So we went to Newton.

After being use to seeing one of the best fireworks displays in the country, Newton’s seemed kind of lame. I recognize that any city’s wouldn’t seem great but it didn’t help that I wrote down the wrong directions and we had to wait for the fireworks to start then drive in that direction and as a result we ended up seeing them from the side of a road the day before garbage day. We parked beside a gigantic mound of trash and peered down the street towards the sky. Will enjoyed them for a while then was ready to go even before it was over. I agreed with him. Am I ruined forever for normal fireworks? I worry so. Maybe if I have snacks and a chair it would be ok. Certainly I need to watch them in a park rather than by a pile of trash.