A Sparkled Bum

Cops have interesting schedules. Since our weekend falls on Wednesdays and Thursdays, we do things a little differently. I have no idea what will happen when the kids start school. Nor do I want to think about that right now. Instead I will think about how much fun it is when your kids get old enough to enjoy fireworks.
This reminds me of when my niece Taylin was a little sprite and my brother Danny gave her a sparkler to hold. She flung it his way, not thinking of anything but pretty colors and he jumped back. She did it again and he jumped again. Then she chased him all over the yard laughing and squealing. He did some squealing of his own. His hair has never been the same. With this in mind, I squeezed my eyes shut, prayed, crossed fingers and watched Chris give Ian a sparkler to wield. Ian didn't like it, it was too hot. "It might burn you," he told us. "Danger Rangers say 'No get burned by a pockler.'" Danger Rangers is his second favorite show on PBS. So Chris held the sparkler and we oohed and aahed.
We were supposed to do our big fireworks extravaganza on the 3rd, since Chris had to work the 4th. Well, there was a deluge. It rained REALLY hard and just didn't stop. Ian was very disappointed and eventually went to bed. Chris was really disappointed because he works evening shift. We would have to wait a week until we got a chance to do the fireworks again. Ugh.
On the Fab 4th, Chris went to work and the kids and I went to Momo's house for a barbeque and playing with other kids and fireworks after dark. Why am I the only one who likes PBS? I mean, HEY, they showed the DC 4th of July shindig. Huey Lewis and the News, a few interesting operatic people (wince, okay, maybe that's one of the reasons why some people don't like it...). We didn't watch Taylor Hicks. I thought it said Taylor Swift ([singing] 'I hate that stupid old pickup truck you never let me drive...'), so I was very disappointed when the gray haired guy from an old American Idol started bellowing and booty shaking on the stage. The show was booed by everyone in the living room and the channel was changed to 'The Twilight Zone' in black and white. It was changed back to PBS in time for Jerry Lee Lewis, who is 80? 90? There was a brief discussion of the other Jerry Lewis. It was decided that while his movies were Not Funny at all, he is responsible for great things like Multiple Sclerosis help and research, etc. I did not participate in this discussion, as I was singing along with Great Balls of Fire and dancing with Erin.
Anyway, after the food was grilled and eaten (there was some reconstruction of the grill burner...how many grown men will it take to put together a grill burner correctly?? How long will it take?? Uh, 6 grown men 4 hours. Yup. Yeah.), there was ice cream to crank. Momo asked Ian if he wanted vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. He said "No, just chocolate sauce. Buncha chocolate sauce." She laughed and got him some and helped his spoon find his mouth and not the carpet. He had 2 bowls and a messy, happy face.
After a lot of fidgeting and chafing and begging, the men were prevailed upon to get their full carcasses off of the furniture and mosey on outside to do the fireworks. This is when the Sparkled Bum occurred.
What do you get when you have 5 packages of short, medium and long sparklers and 6 kids between the ages of 3 and 10?
Chaos, my friend, complete and utter chaos. You get kids who wave the sparklers around madly, trying to write their name or just make pretty shapes (only half of them can read). You get the oldest one trying to re-enact the opening bars of the Sound of Music, flailing her sparkler at the eye level of the smaller ones. You get really preoccupied youngsters who are so mesmerized by the burning and crackling that they don't realize how close they are to the Bums of Others. And that is how Emily almost set Ian's bum on fire. :) There was a lot of screeching and 'Oh No!'s and the crisis was averted. After that Ian kept a very close watch on Emily, who still didn't see what the big deal was. She then snuck over to the sparkler supplier, her cousin, got 4 or 5 and then saved them until the fireworks were all done. Later, the rest of the kids watched her with pitiful expressions on their faces. She was very gracious and gave a couple away, but mostly just had a good time being the envy of the older ones, who wished they would've thought of it.
But when Ian saw all the other kids doing sparklers, it didn't take him long to get one too. And that was it. He still doesn't like the short ones all that much, and has to be reminded to hold it at the end of the stick, but he had a blast.
The whole flock of kids had a great time going with the grown up (it was the men, like it always is) to light the Big Fireworks. The One with the Lighter would light it and yell "Run! Run!" The kids would all scream and run back to their seats, hopefully in time to actually see the fireworks in the sky. I think they had more fun running and screaming than they did watching the sky.
But we didn't get home until quarter after 10. Since we all reeked of bugspray, it was tub time. The kids were out by 10:30, all 'clean and shiny,' and I called Chris. Ian was way too keyed up to sleep, so we waited until Chris got home at 11 and Finally got to do our Fireworks. Erin wasn't interested in more fireworks. She went to bed. But the rest of us went outside, in the middle of the night, waaaay after bedtime, in our pjs, and had a grand old time.

Now, instead of "These many days until fireworks, Mommy," I get to listen to "What many days until my birthday, Mommy?" It's so much fun, but it goes by SO fast.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you all about my first canning project: PICKLES! And the pictures of Erin are of her wearing another cookie. Ian was just being funny and thought we should get a shot of his nostril.