Bombs bursting, mosquitos biting

I guess the 4th means more to me than I thought. Not having Bill here today really, well, sucked. I was jealous that I could smell the neighbors' BBQ's thinking, "Bill would be grilling out right now if he were home." I was upset that my plans of getting together with my best friend had to be cancelled. Anyone that I would want to spend time with had plans. So here I was, with my husband in a place where he really doesn't want to see any fireworks, and two little ones on a gorgeous day and no where to go, nothing to do, no one to see.

Leah took a very long nap. She slept from 11-3 so I figured that should do it for her. If I stayed home, I would go insane. I had to get out and breathe different air and Trey needed to have a change of scenery and I needed to get a new mattress pad for the baby so why not make that an excuse to go to Babies R Us! Trey was very excited that we were going to "the baby store". I'll be sure to remind him of that when he's eleven. He'll love me even more then. After we got home, I made Trey lie down since he was being Mr. Cranky Pants and that's no way to end this wonderful day. Leah surprised me by falling asleep again. I dragged her out of bed at 8:30 since I needed her to sleep sometime tonight, while it's still dark, when I'm hopefully sleeping. No more partying at 3am young lady! Trey told me he didn't want to see fireworks. What?! No fireworks? That's all he's been talking about. I asked if he wanted to watch them on tv. "Yes." Well, that's just sad but I guess it saves me the hassle of traffic and fidgety kids. Two minutes later: "I wanna see the fireworks. Is it dark yet?" Oh man. Fine.

I packed some snacks, changed everyone into pants, packed sweatshirts and a blanket and we headed out to the car. I was planning on going the long way around the military base and parking up in one of the housing areas to watch the display at the beach. I decided to take a short cut and as I traveled up the hill I realized I could probably catch one, if not two displays if I found a place to park. One of the nice things about this base is that there's tons of unused land, a rare commodity in this part of the state. Sure enough, I found a great spot, spread the blanket on the hood of the car, parked Trey on the blanket and pulled the stroller out of the back, stuck Leah in the stroller with some goldfish crackers and we saw not one, not two but six to seven different displays. Trey loved every single one of them. As I'm leaning up against the car, Trey grabs my face from behind and says, "Look right there!" pointing my head in the general direction of the display. Gee, thanks mom. He's absolutely giddy with the pyrotechnics going on. He gives me a big squeeze and says, "You're my best friend". Awww!! Guilt guilt guilt: do more fun stuff with the kid. Guilt guilt guilt.

So not only did we get out, I regained my sanity and we saw fireworks AND we were the only ones on that hill, there was no traffic to fight and we were home ten minutes after the show was over. Not too shabby for a day that started out less than ideal.

Oh, and my little sleepy princess that slept the day away....yeah, she just went to bed.