Happy 4th

This year, knowing that I would have a small baby on the 4th, decided that I would do things the easy way for the 4th.  I have a hard time with that because I really like throwing parties.  But I forced myself to keep plans small.

We invited Greg's family over for lunch (I bought all the food pre-made).  Then we spent the rest of the day at the Wheatley's pool since they were in Utah.  I came back early since I was pretty sure Zora had heat stroke.  She didn't, but it was hot and she screamed when I stuck her toe in the pool.  Oops.

Zora is actually in her adorable bathing suit here--too bad she screamed when I tried to sneak her in the pool

That night I decided that I wanted to see big fireworks because that's what we did when I was a kid.   But I wanted to good seats so I thought we'd actually go to the baseball game.  Turns out the Charlotte Knight's tickets were $40 to stand so we went to the Kannopolis Intimidators instead.  Much cheaper.  Too bad half the country had the same fantastic idea that I had.  Parking was next to impossible.  Lines for food (also part of my easy plan was just to buy over-priced hot dogs) were 30 minutes long.  And it was hot.

During the game, the kids ran around on the walkway just above our seats, stressing Greg out.  Then at the bottom of the 9th, Greg noticed a poop smell.  I thought it was just a Zora fart, but Henry was standing next to me so I checked him too.  It was up his back and spilling out of his diaper onto the pavement.  As I took him up the stairs to the bathroom, another fan smiled at me and said, "Yeah he was leaking but I didn't know what to say."  Then I noticed the little brown, bum-shaped marks all along the walkway were he was playing.  Nasty and embarrassing.  But mostly nasty.  Unfortunately I didn't have spare clothes for him so I had to scrub out his shorts and shirt in the sink then use at least a million wipes to get him clean.

(*Note: I had picked out cute red, white and blue outfits for everyone but not every appreciated my efforts so that's why people are dressed the way they're dressed)

We walked out of the bathroom just as the fireworks started.   Henry loved them.  I had to carry his poop-stained, public bathroom-cleaned self back to our seats because he was too enthralled with the fireworks to walk.  As I sat down, I heard terrible, horrified screaming.  It was Alice. It was quite the freak out.  She wanted to go home right then.  I've never seen a kid that scared before.  I tried covering her ears and eyes but that just seemed to make it worse.  She was a wreck. Luckily, it was a short show.

Henry, however, cried all the way home because he wanted more fireworks and then refused to come inside once we got home because he wanted more fireworks.

That was our hot, happy, and tear-filled day.  (Rex also threw a tantrum about being thirsty and hungry the second he walked into the ball park).