Fyah-Wuhks

When Dylan was Micah's age, he was OBSESSED with fireworks. He would ask for them every single night for like a year - "Mama, can we have fyah-wuhks? I wuv fyah-wuhks." That kid was talking in sentences when he was 18 months old. It's so weird to see how different my other kids are from him in the speech department of their lives.

Anywho. As usual, my folks invited us over for their 4th of July neighborhood fireworks, and they were AWESOME. It's these two dudes that get together and buy thousands of dollars worth of fireworks every year, then hire a dude to orchestrate them going off. The two dudes' names are Brady and Garth. My mom has dubbed the fireworks display 'Brady and Garth's Excellent Adventure,' which is really funny, because the character of Garth isn't in that movie. He's in Wayne's world. If one of the dudes was named Bill or Ted, then that title would make sense. But it's catchy and makes me smile every time. The fireworks are the up-in-the-air, huge, explosive kinds. My folks' neighborhood does their show one day before the city does its huge show, but the neighborhood one is seriously so good that I don't care to go to the city one. At the city one, you have to go find a spot early in the morning and camp out all day to hold it. You have to park a million miles away and walk really far, carrying all of your stuff. And then all of these strangers get into big fights about who is blocking the view, etc. And people walk around selling glow bracelets, and my kids beg me for them all night long. Sooo not fun.

They always serve ice cream like an hour before the festivities begin. Farr's ice cream, which, as you know, is by Farr the best. :) Yummmmm.

We took some photos after ice cream and before fireworks.

Dylan, the Video Game Crackhead:

You know those questions on the SAT? The ones that are like, ketchup is to hot dogs as jelly is to what?? And they use a colon to signify the comparison, like, ketchup:hot dogs::jelly:________. I hated those questions. But I've got one for you that shows the strength of Dylan's video game obsession. Micah:candy::Dylan:video games. They both will do anything for their fix. Smack, yell, hit, scream, etc. I let Dylan play on the computer only one hour per day, and when I tell him to get off, he acts like a drug addict going through withdrawals. I told him a couple of days ago that, the next time he yells and screams and stomps around when I make him get off the computer, he can't play on the computer for a week. He has simmered down since then. And I've stopped bringing candy home from work for Micah. I just don't need all of this Crackhead Stress.

Dylan finds and loses and finds and loses his handheld gaming device, which mysteriously appeared on our lawn a couple of years ago. He had found it again the day of the fireworks display, so he was furiously playing some racing game. All of the normal children were running around the big grassy pit, rolling down it, climbing on rocks, and Dylan was down there, standing on a rock, playing his dumb handheld video game, and trying to show it to completely disinterested stranger children who were running by. He is so weird. He really thinks that other people are interested in watching him play video games.

Ben and I have some games on our cell phones. Dylan will sometimes ask if he can play a game on my phone; it depends on the situation whether or not I say yes. If I'm trying to cook dinner and I need him out of my hair, I'm like, sure, take it, go away. Anyways, apparently, he ordered three new games on my phone. $30 was charged to my cell phone bill. I had no idea. Neither did Dylan. He just thought he could get games for free by pushing a button, since it didn't ask for his debit card number or anything. Ben and I were so mad. We cancelled the subscriptions, but Dylan still owes us $30, the punk.

Anyways.

I get really, really embarrassed when people take pictures of me. I don't know why. It's like I feel like I'm really vain or something if I don't make a silly face or just smile uncomfortably. Ben will be like, be serious, and look into the camera, and I'm like, no. I'm not a model, you know? I know that's weird, but it's just a thing I have. So this shot was really difficult for me to hold still for:

It shows me in all my poofy, greasy, pimpley glory. :) I was lying down. The ground was too hard for me to sit up. I was really uncomfortable. Physically and emotionally. :)

Micah has no qualms about coming up and looking straight into the camera. We have like ten pictures like this from that night - him posing happily and comfortably for his adoring fans:

He's so cute.

It took forever for the fireworks to begin, and the kids were being so annoying. This was Ben's solution for dealing with the kids:

Pulling a blanket over his face and ignoring them.

The fireworks finally began, and Micah was terrified:

He wouldn't watch. It was really quite cute.

Thanks for inviting us over, Ma and Pa!