Fun With Fireworks

I have two children who are afraid of fireworks. They hate the noise, they hate how unpredictable fireworks are, it's all just too much. Because of this we don't go to fireworks displays or set any off at our house. Last year I decided to ease them into the whole July Fourth scene. I picked up a pack of sparklers and a few whizzy, spinny things that make sparks on the ground. You remember sparklers? You hold them in your hand and write your name in the air. They sparkle and are pretty and last all of 15 seconds? Glorious childhood memories were conjured up when I bought that pack. Fast forward to last summer. I gathered everybody on the steps by the driveway. I had wet the grass with the hose, nice and safe, don't want any freak accidents. It was still early so it wasn't dark and scary. I used my best "Mommy-is-the-island-of-safety" voice and it went something like this:

Okay, we're going to start with this cute little flower basket one. Let's see, it says it emits a shower of sparks. Oooh! That sounds pretty. Here we go!

(lights the flower basket which goes crazy with sparks and loud, high pitched whistles which scares the bejesus out of me and I FALL DOWN trying to get away from the thing. This is all caught on tape, of course)

Kids scoot up a few steps. I get up, apologize for the bad words I've yelled and pull out the next demon firework. It's a little race car! My son loves cars!

Look, Honey! This one is a car! Now, it's going to shower sparks and make noises like the other one, okay? (okay) Ready? (ready)

(lights the race car which does indeed go crazy with sparks and whistles but has the added bonus of ROLLING STRAIGHT TOWARD THE STEPS!) Run! Run!

Kids are all on top of their Dad who is looking quite amused by this time.

Alright, that was a little scary. I'm really sorry about that. Look, all we have now are sparklers! I only bought the kind that you look at and don't hold in your hand. Maybe next year we can get the kind you hold. These I will put into the ground and we can stand back and watch them. Okay? (okay)

(lights the sparklers, which do indeed begin sparkling and shooting big chunks of burning embers into the air, one of which goes into the sleeve of my tee-shirt.) I'M ON FIRE! HELP! HELP! (jumping and flapping)

Kids and Dad are in the house, watching out the window. Show's over.

Have a happy July 4th everybody and remember: stop, drop and roll.

Mable's Animal Kingdom

Mable's Animal Kingdom

It was so sweet. This Father's Day morning my husband was on our deck enjoying the beautiful sunshiny day when he saw a big, yellow butterfly. He called to those of us who were out-of-bed to come and see this wonder of nature. I scooted my two littlest kids outside in time to see the butterfly circling my husband and then land on the step in the sun. We were just exclaiming at the site when our big orange cat, Tiggger (3 g's, T-I-triple guh-er) lunged out from under the deck, pounced on the butterfly and disappeared back under to torture the poor thing for an hour. We crawled around trying to coax them both out, but Tiggger wouldn't be persuaded. He did the whole cat-and-butterfly routine: swat it down, let it up, swat it down and there was nothing anybody could do about it since I have enclosed my deck with lattice so my vines can grow. I worried for about a second if my kids would be traumatized, until my son yelled, "That was awesome!". Now I'm worried about my son...........

DY-NO-MITE!

Yesterday at the crack of dawn, I opened the door to a construction worker, hard hat and all, who was there to warn me they would be blasting a hole in the ground in the empty lot near our house. I asked what "blasting" meant and he mentioned dynamite and handed me a flyer. The lot in question is the last one left in this neighborhood. It's last because it's a complete dog of a lot. We've talked to people who have looked at it and we've learned it's in a flood plain and was almost condemned for building because it was a natural bog or something. Anyway, somebody wants to build there really badly because they not only bought the bloody site, but are proceeding with the project even after running into bedrock while digging the foundation, hence the TNT. Everytime they get ready to blow they sound a couple of airhorns, countdown from 5 and yell, "Fire in the hole!" (my favorite part) Then they blast the hell out of the earth. It feels like an earthquake and sounds like hiroshima. This happens a few times each day and is providing us with entertainment in the 100 degree heat.

12 is the best age

I know a girl who is 12. She has been dancing for ohhhhhhhhhh 9 years and has been called a "dance prodigy". Yes, that's three fourths of her young life spent in the studio, perfecting her craft, as they say. People would ask her parents if they were crazy to drive her back and forth to dance every day. Or, were they some kind of Nazi stage parents? No, the girl simply loved dance. She loved her abilities, the studio, her teachers, her fellow dancers, competition and exercise. Then, one day she tells her parents she'd like to take a year off and try all the things she's been giving up all these years, like tennis! Isn't being 12 the best? Do you think a 40 year old can have that kind of a "do over"? No way! 12 is the best age. :)

it's back.......Mable's Movie Review

We wanted to watch a movie that was "laugh out loud funny" so we chose The Family Stone. I may have laughed a couple of times, but mostly I cried and cried. This is not really a comedy, it's one of those movies that acts like a comedy, they bill it as a comedy, the trailers show the really funny parts, and then you watch it and find it's really a 3 kleenex tear-jerker. I was not prepared for that, I wanted funny! Having said that, I did like this movie. Sarah Jessica Parker did a good job not being Carrie and the rest of the cast was great doing what they were supposed to do: act mean, be beautiful, be sympathetic, be tragic. The lead male was Dylan McDermott? Dermot Mulroney? Honestly, one of them has to change their name. The guy from My Best Friend's Wedding. He was a little weak. The two leads switched loyalties so easily, I just wasn't buying the whole, now we're one big happy family thing. I love Claire Danes and have since My So-Called Life. She is on my short list of favorite actresses. If not for the breast cancer element, I would probably not still be thinking about the film. That part made me cry my eyes out. I can't handle Moms dying and missing their kid's lives. They could barely get the Christmas Tree decorated without their Mom.
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Mable found an effing effigy!

I was going to write about how, after several adjustments, my husband informed me that my Chiropractor was the "Caveman Homecoming Queen" at the Halloween party we went to last year. (Obviously I didn't recognize him without his tiara and club.) Trust me, THIS is much more interesting. By the way, this news did nothing to alleviate my fear of the "chiro-cracker".

We were on our way to dinner, all six of us in the car and as I approached the railroad overpass I notice a body in the ditch below the tracks. Yes, I said a flipping BODY. Stop the car, get out, walk through the prairie dog town in my sandals to look at the body and make some decisions. I start getting closer to it and my heart is pounding and suddenly I wonder why I always have to be little miss junior detective? Plus, my kids are in the car and if it really IS a body, I'm going to lose it right there in the dirt. Plus, pee-yoo, a body. I'm standing right over the thing and it looks like a large man in a ski suit wearing a hat who has been hit by the train. On closer inspection, as I later tell the police, I am 99% sure it is not a human body, but a practical joke. The thing has garbage bags coming out of the cuffs and the head is either wrapped with bags or is made of bags, impossible to tell without touching it and CSI I ain't. I hightailed it out of there and put it in the hands of the authorities. The really gross part is, last year a guy really DID get hit and killed by a train about 100 yards from that spot.......Okay, Office Zabroski just called me to say it is indeed just a stuffed jumpsuit. Very funny.