Terror in the skies

The Fourth of July celebrations have been pretty traumatic for Evan. We JUST got Dani to stop being afraid of fireworks and Evan started up this year. We went to a fireworks show in our old subdivision on Saturday. As we drove over there, you could see people setting off fireworks at their homes and the kids were so excited to see them. When we finally pulled up to our friends house, they all jumped out of the car, JUST as the neighbor across the street lit a firework. It launched into the air, heading in our general direction and Evan said, "Look, Mom! A... NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as he started running from the firework, flinging his arms over his head to protect himself from firey death streaking through the air. Since that moment, he has been PETRIFIED everytime he sees or hears a firework. We tried to get him to watch the show, but he curled up in my lap, squeezed his eyes shut, stuck his fingers in his ears and whimpered, "I want go home... I want go home...." for 20 minutes. And of course, for days before and days after the Fourth, there are always people setting off fireworks in the neighborhood. He has fallen asleep a couple of times, curled up in that same position. How many years will it take to cure him?



The girls, on the other hand, have loved all the fireworks. The guy across the street from us has been setting them off on occasion for about a month and Emily loves to watch them from her bedroom window. Dani's favorite continues to be the "Grandpa Nally," known to less creative folks as the Grand Finale. We discovered a new pryomaniacal pastime this year, too -- sparklers! We had a barbeque with our friends the Hales, who brough some fireworks, which we set off, and 16 boxes of sparklers. WAY more sparklers than 5 kids could light (since Evan insisted on staying inside and watching Dora the Explorer, rather than expose himself to certain terror outside). Finally, Kimball, Laura and I stuck all the sparklers in the ground and tried to light them all at the same time. The first lit ones died before long before the last lit ones were lit and it looked something like a ceremony of questionable origins, but it was still pretty cool.