A Mommy Story

I love three-day weekends, even if they seem to go by as quickly as the standard two-day weekends. We didn’t have a lot planned for the weekend, which made it even more relaxing.

Thursday night was Red, White & Boom in Columbus. I know it sounds a little odd to do the big fireworks display for the city on the day before Independence Day, but that’s how Columbus has always done it. The individual communities and suburbs then get to have their fireworks displays on the fourth, although it always feels a little anticlimactic after the big event the night before.

We didn’t go downtown for the event for a few reasons. I dislike crowds, and this event usually requires you to get there in the morning to claim a good viewing spot for your family, and then spend the remainder of the day defending that spot. Also, Cordy has trouble staying awake beyond 9pm, so the chances that she would fall asleep or be a grumpy child were very strong. She’s too big to carry back to a car now, and asking her to walk a long distance half-awake would be cruel.

So, we watched Red, White & Boom the way we typically watch it: on TV, with delayed stereo sound from the echo of the fireworks from downtown reaching our house.

As expected, Cordy only lasted until 9:30pm, when she announced she was too tired to watch fireworks and went to bed half an hour before the show began.

The morning of the fourth we were all in the Hilliard parade. Aaron was helping out a local comic store by dressing as Captain America and walking with the store’s parade float. Mira was originally going to be on the float for her gymnastics school, but then changed her mind and decided she’d have more fun dressed as Robin with the comic store float.

Cordy agreed to do the parade dressed as Supergirl, but only if she could ride on the float and not have to walk. With all three of them in the parade, I agreed to help out as well, sitting on the float and handing out stacks of comic books to others walking beside the float to distribute to kids watching the parade.

Captain America greets the crowd

Mira, of course, loved the attention. Cordy was less sure about it, trying to follow the lead of others waving to the crowds.

Eventually, Cordy noticed that there were people with dogs watching the parade, and she saw Mira petting the dogs and decided she wanted to walk the parade and interact with people. (Really, it was just about getting the chance to pet a dog, but I’ll accept her excuse.) So she jumped down when the float had paused and started walking beside the float, waving hi to people and high-fiving some of the kids.

She even posed for a photo with a few of them, although I could tell she was fairly uncomfortable with the idea of it.

I was SO proud of her for walking in the parade and interacting with so many people along the parade route! I know it had to take a lot of courage to step out of her comfort zone for that.

Unsurprisingly, she wanted to spend the entire afternoon to herself, decompressing after her very social morning, and we had no objection to that. She still came out to join the neighborhood and watch the fireworks in the evening. (And managed to stay awake for those!)

Mira also found her love for sparklers:

Overall, it was a very nice Fourth of July weekend for the whole family, including Cosmo.