how our 4th went down as a fam-ee of 4.

Haaa Laaaahhh (to be read as: hollar)! That peppy hello was brought on by my still over-joyed spirit about how smoothly our 4th of July went. In our short lived career as parents, last Thursday was probably our shining moment in our cumulative 2.5 years of experience. We (and our kids) completely rocked it, which is quite remarkable and never happens for us.

We played the day rather loosely. With no plans for the morning, we decided spontaneously to go to our town parade 20 minutes before it started. A siren was definitely going off in my head saying "abort, ABORT!" when we were heading out the door because come on, a parade just sounds like a bad idea with 2 kids under 2. Jared and I have developed a crowd-aphobia, and not because of claustrophobia, but because of the fear of a child breakdown in an area most unsuited for escape. The idea of a parade just made us both cringe because of how much effort would be put into getting 2 kids to something that they might not enjoy. But to our great surprise, the crowds were do-able, we were all entertained, stayed for the appropriate time of 30 minutes, and turned around to come home for Warner's nap without traffic. In our farewell wave to the parade, Jared and I turned and walked toward the car with such smug faces. We felt like we had seriously won the lottery, or even better yet, the best parent award. Not only did we get to let our children experience the liveliness of a parade - complete with the essential clowns, race cars, bands, floats, and balloons - but we did it without meltdowns, traffic, and kept our sanity. It was enjoyable for everyone!!!!!!!! and that is a reason to celebrate right there.

In the evening we had a wonderful bbq with friends. We left to go see the fireworks 20 minutes before they started, which again "abort, ABORT!" was going through my head. We should have left earlier, but we found a spot in a business park a mile away from the launch site and parked ourselves on the curb. Evelyn did some poppers in the meantime, which she loved. Then came the actual fireworks. Warner was entranced.

We quickly skeddadled out after the finale and made it home without the hair-pulling high-stress traffic with no overly tired kids screaming in the back. Again, Jared and I patted each other on the back and smacked our smug faces back on. We pulled off the 4th perfectly. Or rather, our kids did. We all did! A real day of triumph for our family!