Being the wonderful mother that I am, I did not take one single picture of Preston on the 4th this year. Technically, last year was his first time to experience this holiday, so that one was more important... but I still feel a little bad about not documenting this day (even though it was very low key). We started off the morning bright and early at 6:30 (thank you so much Preston for being so eager to wake up to celebrate). We joined the "other" Emerson's (Candace, Justin, and Ava) for lunch at one of my favorite places- the ever-classy Spring Creek BBQ. Why <you might ask> is that my favorite place? 1. BBQ and mac n cheese (I shouldn't have to list any more to be honest) 2. We had a gift card because of some school fundraisers we did this year 3. You get your food immediately (we can get in and get out without a fuss) 4. You never have to wait 5. Their rolls (or as they like you to call them "warm fresh bread,") are dy-no-mite! 6. I could go on for quite sometime, so I'll just leave it at that.
After lunch, Brad, Preston, and I went on a search for a new angel fish. We have one, but Brad has been insistent on the fact that we need two because the first one needs a friend (I'm guessing the eight other fish don't do the trick). Oddly enough, every time we go to get one at either Petco or Petsmart, they are always sold out. This is very strange to me as I didn't know there were "popular" fish- but I guess I don't know much about anything to do with fish, so that would make since.
We stopped and rented "Little Fockers," to watch once our little- um- Preston went to sleep. We came home played, ate dinner, then put my little nugget to bed.
We started the movie (which I would like to point our here is OK, but definitely nothing compared to the two previous movies in the series). Around 9ish the fireworks around us started. The city fireworks were held on Friday (the 1st) and honestly considering we are in a major drought right now along with being IN city limits where it is illegal to set of fireworks, I wasn't expecting them. I know, I know- I should have known, but I guess I was in extreme denial that anything was going to wake up my child. There were several loud pops that I swore were going to wake him.. but nothing. Then, at about 9:45, right as our movie was wrapping up, things got a little crazy! All of the sudden what sounded like a machine gun was exploding on our front porch... and what do all people do in the moment they think there is a machine gun on their front porch do? Well they open the front door on the front porch of course... Thank GOD is was not in fact a machine gun OR on our front porch for that matter. BUT it was a lovely set of black cat fireworks some punk kids sat off right in the middle of our street. Of course, by the time we got out there and realized what the heck was going on- there was no one except for all of the other neighbors on their front porches in their lovely jammies. I immediately ran back in to look at the baby monitor because I just knew that HAD to have woken Preston up... but NOPE... little man was snuggled in a little ball in the corner of his bed. Now how is it that sometimes a simple flush of the toilet can wake the child but not the next world war on our front porch? CrAzY- now I'm not going to complain because I don't know what I would have done with a screaming child at that time...
After we calmed down a bit, Brad and I did what all normal couples do in a situation like this, we had a stake out. Yep, you heard me correctly. We turned off all of the lights and sat in our dining room peering through the windows just waiting for those kids to try and come back. During this time, I decided to blame it all on Brad because of a little thing I like to call karma. Yes, I knew Brad in high school and I also knew this was very likely something he did back then. For boys, this is the ultimate excitement. Unlike us girls who got our thrills NOT from setting dog poop on fire on someones front porch, but instead from giving other girls snarl looks for looking trashy (when, in all actually, she was probably wearing something I too had in my closet from a Wet Seal Clearance sale). Anyway, of course Brad had pulled this firework prank, only with several more fireworks and as he described it, even better. I asked him in that moment if he now regretted doing that to the people. His response.. "No, they didn't have a baby. If I didn't have a baby right now, I wouldn't care." Really? So unless you have a child under the age of 2 or 3, you deserve to have the sh- I mean- crap scared out of you? That was pretty much Brad's point. So as we sat on the floor of our dining room ridiculously waiting on these children to come back by (and now I wonder what would we have even done if we had caught them?) I said, "If this was you, would you come back by?" "No." We then decided the 5 minute stake out had become pointless and turned on just about every outside light we have just to send a clear message to these young Brad's- we're home and we will catch you next time.
As I'm sure you guessed, nothing happened for the rest of the night. A few fireworks were sat off here and there around the neighborhood, but nothing that caused too much concern. Looking back, this night has really got me thinking about Karma... it is definitely something I believe in both the good and the bad. All I have to say is, can't God just forget about all of the bad BRAD (well, I guess me too) did as a teenager and focus on the good? Lord knows I don't want to have to make up for all of my husbands crazy antics, but I guess, at this point, I have no choice. So bring on the karma, bring on the next generation of smashed in mailboxes, insanely loud fireworks, and don't forget, toilet papered houses...
