You’re probably thinking I’m scared of the Fourth of July fireworks or crazy people who had too much to drink and are high on smoke bombs driving around, but that would be wrong. Well, the latter is a little worrisome, but not an issue I’ve dealt with before.
Nope, right now, as you read this, my wife and I probably just finished our 5k at a nearby brewery as G-Ma and Avery cheered us on and are sipping on a refreshing craft beer to celebrate. The scary part is what we’re doing for the day; going to G-Ma’s to *gasp* spend the night!
As you can tell, I’m writing this in advance, so I’ll have to fill you in on the details of our race and the rest of today in a future post. For now, I’m just sharing my fear with you. Avery has outgrown her pack ‘n play portable crib which we’ve always used at G-Ma’s and we have been avoiding another visit for far too long.
This time, we are going to make a comfortable bed on the ground since she has no awareness of boundaries and hope for the best. She is never just asleep when we put her to bed in her crib at night, and she usually rolls all over the place talking for a good 20 minutes. I assume this normal for most toddlers, but geez, she’s crazy!
So now, after waking up early for the 5k and being exposed to fireworks, she’ll either be extremely tired and will go to sleep easily, or so tired she’s wired. Parents, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. We brought her to G-Ma’s last year where she first saw fireworks, but was hardly aware of what exactly was happening.
Now that she is very aware of everything around her, who knows how she’ll take the loud booms and flashy pyrotechnics. Will it be overstimulating, scary, or a joy to watch for her? Guess we’re finding out today!
So, the plan of attack is counting on the accumulation of waking up early, playing at G-Ma’s and swimming at her neighbor’s house, possibly no nap, and staying up later to see fireworks working for instead of against us to get her to sleep good at night. Wow, that was a long sentence!
My nerves are a little frantic, if you can’t tell, but luckily Going Mom is cool and calm. Hope my frantic state is all for not.
Bye for now, and Happy Fourth of July to those of you here in the U.S.! Happy weekend to the rest of you!
Have you had to deal with a tricky sleep situation for your little one?
Ever find a solution or was it just a miserable night for everyone?
Okay, it’s getting back to normal at home after our extended stay over the weekend. And by normal, I mean constant chaos from a mobile baby on the verge of teething. We keep blaming her fussiness on the possibility of her cutting a tooth, but have yet to actually see a tooth.
I guess since Going Mom is still breastfeeding, she’s probably not trying to rush those chompy incisors too much!
Our 4th of July weekend started with us frantically gathering random things around our house and putting them in the car to take to G-Ma’s (i.e. packing) all while doing our best to manage Avery and give her the attention she needed.
Yes, attention, I NEED it!
I credit my awesome wife for tending to Avery most of the time and I’m not sure what I would do without my beautiful partner in crime parenthood.
Eventually, we had everything packed, including all of the cloth diapers we own, and were on our way to G-Ma’s. With virtually little to no traffic (uncommon for I-35W), we made it in around 40 minutes and were exchanging hugs with G-Ma and her boyfriend Paul.
Avery enjoyed a short nap on the drive and G-Ma wasted no time getting her Avery hug time in. But now that she’s a crawler, Avery was anxious to get down and explore new territory.
Our long-time friends and neighbors just a few houses down always have a 4th of July party, so we were going to head down there to swim in their pool and watch the fireworks at night.
G-Ma lives in the country where anyone can shoot off their high powered artillery. Kelley and I were excited for this because it would be the first time Avery gets to experience fireworks. #StupidNewParents
After a failed attempt at getting Avery to nap, we walked down to Tim and Melissa’s, our friends/neighbors, to go for a swim. I just finished an intense workout in the heat, and was in yearning to jump in!
We all spent a few hours relaxing in the pool and having a few drinks as Avery made her rounds.
Tough to please, but she kinda smiles if you tickle her a little. But not much!
She started to get cranky, even after Kelley fed her, so we decided to go back and try for another nap before heading back down to eat and watch fireworks that evening.
Avery had different plans; how about no nap and just staying up with everyone else. She had 10 minutes of this, which looked promising, but then woke up crying.
Suckers, I’ll wake in precisely 10 minutes!!!
I guess she really wanted to see G-Ma! Despite her resisting sleep, Avery kept showing all signs of being tired, but she remained stubborn…..and awake.
Caught with a yawn.
With the sun starting to set and fireworks on the mind, we walked back to our kind hosts to enjoy food and fireworks. But first, we tried another picture with G-Ma in hopes of a smile…..fail.
Tim and Melissa have 4 boys with the oldest being Uncle Preston’s age and the youngest just about to graduate high school. Every year, for as long as I can remember, they would buy massive amounts of fireworks and always put on a big show. But this year, they said they were going to keep it low key….
Ummm, yeah, not sure what happened there.
Maybe we have different views of what “low key” means, but that looked like a lot to me. Oh, and that was just what they could fit in the wagon, there were more fireworks waiting to be loaded.
After eating grilled chicken and a colossal salad topped with their homemade salsa using veggies from their organic garden, we impatiently waited for it to get dark enough to have the fireworks begin.
G-Ma holding down the fort/crabby baby.
Yes, “impatiently” because we had an increasingly fussy baby who needed to get some quality sleep!
But not before we made her wait to see bright lights and hear loud booms. Both great things to introduce to a sleepy baby, right?
Finally, the fireworks had begun, and instead of us watching as they exploded in the air, Going Mom and I were glued to Avery’s face to see her expression. G-Ma boldly held her as she actually showed a little sign of enjoyment!
The loud sounds and bright displays of light had her attention, but she hardly reacted as they went off. Not quite what we were expecting, but I guess that’s what happens after a long day of no sleep but a lot of swimming and having a fun time with G-Ma and Paul.
We hung around a little longer just to let “the experience” set in before Kelley and I returned to G-Ma’s for Avery’s bath and bed time.
Probably the last smile of the night.
As we walked back, it sounded as if we were in the middle of a warzone with the fireworks shattering in brilliant displays of light; not the best setting for a baby’s bed time.
With our white noise and a fan set on the highest setting, we hoped for the best as Avery was laid down for the night. There were fireworks still going off past midnight, but Avery actually slept through it all.
Kelley and I had to share the same room with Avery, which was difficult to try the whole “let them cry 10 minutes” thing, but we survived to speak of it today! I’ll share the day after in tomorrow’s post, and will leave you with what we woke up to first thing the next day.
How was your 4th of July?
Do you have any babies that got to see fireworks for the first time, or remember when your kids experienced them?
Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans, and Happy Friday to all others! Both great things, and both reasons to celebrate!
We’re heading down to G-Ma’s to celebrate the 4th of July weekend with Uncle Preston (if he’s around) and G-Ma’s boyfriend, Paul. This will be the first time Avery gets to watch fireworks, and we’re not too sure how she’ll act. Any tips?
Growing up, I remember getting tremendously excited around New Year’s and the 4th of July because that meant fireworks!! When I was old enough, I would have my own yard sale trying to sell anything from some of my old books to jewelry I thought my mom would never miss.
For some reason, some boy sitting in the front yard with a few things laying on a blanket never got me very far. I earned some money, though, but mainly out of pity from the neighbors. I even tried my shot at a Kool-Aid stand which earned a bit too. Same reason…..pity.
With my earnings, I’d ride my bright neon Huffy bike to the firework stand nearby and spend it all on whatever I could afford. The stand owners were parents to one of my friends, so they’d always toss in a few extras.
I couldn’t afford the big fireworks, my sympathetic mom helped there, so I mainly came back with a lot of Black Cat firecrackers. Probably for the best since trying to ride bike while carrying several artillery shell fireworks would be ill-advised.
Not 30 minutes after arriving back home and I’d be out of my hard earned fire ant disrupters. Man, for such a small thing, those firecrackers are pretty potent!
One day, while Avery was screaming because I set her down for a second, I reflected upon my past obsession with firecrackers and came up with 4 things they have in common with babies. I figured 4 is a good number for the 4th; see how intuitive I am?
1. Both are small but loud. When compared to an adult, babies are small, cute and (usually) cuddly, right? Likewise, a firecracker pales in comparison to the enormous fireworks you’d see at a major firework display. Despite their small packaging, babies and firecrackers can and do create quite a racket.
The firecrackers are self-explanatory; you light them and they go “boom!” Babies do a great job at creating loud noise with just their vocals, or by grabbing anything nearby and banging it on anything else nearby.
Door stops make great noise!!
Although, unless you have one of those strands of 50,000 firecrackers set to explode one after the other in sequence, babies tend to make noise for longer periods. And, unfortunately, it’s not on cue by lighting a fuse, it’s all on their terms!
2. Both are good at exploding. While firecrackers themselves explode, babies tend to create explosions by other means. But, after either one “explodes” you have a mess to clean up.
The paper wrapping and any remnants from an unfortunate toy might be scattered across the ground, while babies leave their aftermath inside a diaper, on the floor, up their back, in the tub, in the car, in the…well, you get the idea.
3. Both have a short fuse. You ever try to light a single firecracker? Those things explode before you can turn the other way after lighting, and a lot of people, me included, just light and throw them quickly as they explode before touching the ground. Not safe or smart since you eventually have one go off in your hand which feels far from good.
I’m happy.
Babies, on the other hand, can be as happy as a clam at high tide for one moment, but if you so much as take your attention off of them to scratch your head, they can go irate! This happens to Going Mom and me frequently; we’ll have Avery laughing as we coo at her and make funny faces, but we stop to talk to each other and WHAM! she’s crying.
No I’m not!
4. Both need to be tightly swaddled/wrapped. We haven’t swaddled Avery in months, but when we did, it had to be a tight wrap. If it wasn’t tight enough, she’d get her arms free and thrash around like a short circuited robot. For a firecracker to work as intended, it needs to be very tightly wrapped around the powder inside.
If you’re celebrating today, I hope you have a fun and safe time wherever you are. Happy 4th of July!!
Can you think of any other semblances with babies and firecrackers?
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
