Fireworks and Heart Attacks

Hola, Wild Boy friends and family, and a very happy Independence Day from la Casa de Testosterone. We are spending today recovering, since our happy little town does it's celebration on the 3rd of July to allow the more adventurous souls out there that want to be crammed elbow to elbow with strangers and trapped in cars for traffic snarled hours to see larger shows in bigger cities that opportunity. Me? Not so much. I like our small town show. I like being in the park, and seeing everyone, and by the end of the evening expanding our blankets to allow for whatever tribe of children settle down with us.

This year was only slightly different. The Wild Boys are old enough now that girls rarely settle down with us anymore (although they do manage to casually walk by giggling with frightening regularity). Also, my attention is divided between two different dangers - Gabe and his friends courting finger loss and major burns, and Gavin and his friends being pulled in by the lure of the she-devil girls trying to lead them straight down the fast sin path to Hell.

A little side note - I like to think I'm pretty cool and relaxed a lot of the time. But for several years running I have lost massive amounts of skin on my fingers trying to light a million sparklers (and developed what some drug cops refer to as "Black Claw" where my fingers looked like I'd spent the night hitting a skin searing meth pipe repeatedly). Also, I was raised Irish Catholic, I have the temperament to match that, and I've seen The Water Boy enough to tell you that girls are the Devil. So I was on pretty high alert last night.

Did they disappoint? Good lord no. Gabe found one of his twin friends (you may recall he's referred to as the triplet, and he and this twin are almost inseparable) right away. I should have known by the fact that his friend was wearing caution tape as a head band that it was going to be a pretty dramatic evening. To demonstrate his willingness to live on the edge he found random ground candy and ate it. When I gagged in my mouth he said  "that's what the headband means...I live dangerously." And in nine year old land that's about true. Then he and Gabe started playing with sparklers, spinning and dangling them dangerously close to one another while I gasped and clutched my chest and repeatedly yelled very uncool mom things like "there's no future for boys with horribly mangled Johnny Tremain hands!"  They don't even ask for explanations anymore - they just roll their eyes at me.

I managed to keep Gavin interested in small doses. Because he's a boy, and things that are on fire/exploding are obviously meant to be played with haphazardly -

But a group of what my sister said looked like "street toughs" came to find Gavin. Don't worry, it was just his friends. All of them are actually pretty amazing little athletes, and they were feeling like the proverbial cocks of the walk last night since they're all finally old enough to walk around by themselves. And all of them are young enough to still answer my questions honestly when I ask them about who else they saw during one of the seemingly endless "just a quick walk" parentless jaunts around the park. Weirdly, none of the names they mentioned were boys. At least they had the good sense to smile and look guilty while I made mental notes of exactly which girls I'll be grilling all my boy mom friends about before school starts in the next few weeks. You think a single woman can find out anything about a man she's interested in? Please y'all, hold my beer. They got nothing on a boy mom who just found out some little temptress has started flirting with her eleven year old. I'll know those girls grades, shoe sizes, and orthodontists names by Friday, I guaran-damn-tee it.

Eventually my Wild Boys settled in to watch the actual show.

We watched amazing fireworks with my family, who tolerate all things Wild Boy and me all the time. It's not easy, believe me.

When all was said and done, the Wild Boys and I made it home around 11. We had to detour to drop off an extra kid we somehow picked up along the way, and brave some small town traffic that involved my kids rolling down the windows and yelling at every cop directing traffic, slowing us down even further as they engaged in casual conversation from the barely crawling car. I warned them against it, since we had to be back this morning at 7 am to clean up firework messes (civic duty, cub scout obligation, worst assignment ever, you get the idea). Because those two were anything but chipper this morning on our way to clean up:

And now, after some lengthy napping, we are getting ready for a barbecue. Meanwhile, I need to start my texting network to find out some information about some eleven year old girls. Until next time, happy fourth - enjoy your families!!!