Happy 4th of July!!

We lounged around the house for the 4th, until Jory said Aunt Lavonia called and invited us to a bbq at her house. As we started getting dress, then he said, he was excited to go to Aunt Carol’s house. Uh, who exactly invited us over? We called and sure enough it was Aunt Carol. We take our overpriced fireworks and head over.

I feed the kids, eat myself, then the kids wanted to go outside to play so I let them for a while as I sat on the porch. After a bit, I decided to take them on a walk until we had to turn around because baby with the world’s smallest bladder had to go to the bathroom. Potty break accomplished and we were off again for a forty minute walk with TTT, my little cousin Maurice, and I walking around the neighborhood. We came back and the girls wanted to go for a ride in the wagon my aunt uses to cart her dirt around for her precious garden. After all of the exercise I decided it was time for a break.

TTT and Maurice found some toys in the backyard and were happily playing. Then they moved to the front where Jory thought it would be fun to pull the girls in the wagon. Since my aunt lives on a non-busy cul de sac, I thought it would be fine for him to walk the girls to the end of the block then turn around and come back to the house.

I sat inside the house and let them go. As I was recovering, my cousin’s friends came over and they took over the porch and the front yard. And that’s when everything went downhill. Every minute my mom was up looking out of the window, out of the door trying to see her grandchildren.

“Mom, they’re fine. Jory is just pulling the wagon on the sidewalk.”

“But no one is watching them,” she said with concern.

“He’s just walking back and forth on the sidewalk.”

I could tell nothing I was going to say was going to satisfy her. So this went on and finally it started to annoy me, particularly when she went outside to go check on them. I followed her.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“I’m checking on the kids,” she retorted with that unstated comment of “because you’re not.”

“I’ve been looking at out of the window.”

“You should be out there with them. It’s not someone else’s job to watch them. They are your children. Ashley is busy with her boyfriend she’s not watching them.”

“I don’t expect anyone to watch them. And where would I watch them from? Am I suppose to interrupt Ashley and her friends’ conversations and hang out on the porch with them or incur Aunt Carol’s wrath by standing or sitting on the available space on the front yard, Ashley’s friends aren’t taking up?”

A pause.

“Haven’t I been out there with them the whole time until Ashley’s friends showed up? Weren’t we gone over an hour on walks?”

Another pause. “Ashley’s friend said she wouldn’t allow her kids to be outside unsupervised,” my mom mentioned.

Why are you listening to a twenty-one-year-old who has no kid?! “Ashley’s friend’s back is to you. She doesn’t see you peeking out the window every five minutes and out the door every minute checking on the kids.”

“Why can’t they play in the backyard?”

“Because between your brother-in-law’s washing machines and your sister’s garden, I prefer them to play in the front.” Not to mention last time we were over here, Layla and Jory made it into your sister’s shed that contains her glass and other things she’s going to sell as soon as she reopens her thrift store- - someday.

“Oh.”

“Let’s go home.”

“We don’t have to do that. You don’t have to get an attitude,” my mom cautioned.

Are you serious!?!?! “I don’t have an attitude. But it’s annoying me that because of something some childless kid said, you have issues with me. I’d rather go home and not have this problem at all.” I walked to the front of the house. “Kids, let’s go!”

I walked back inside the house to collect the fireworks.

“Yash, don’t leave,” my cousins and aunts said.

“No, we have to go home now,” I replied.

“But it’s not dark yet. Wait until we at least do the fireworks,” my cousin, Tony, who had the $250 set of fireworks to light up as soon as the sun went down.

Except the sun wasn’t going down for another two hours or so. I wasn’t putting up with my mom and her attitude for another two hours.

The kids were disappointed, but I told them to put everything back that they played with and we would do the fireworks at home. I wasn’t appreciative of my family trying to make me look like the bad guy for leaving early, but I was more annoyed at my mother so I ignored them.

I got the kids in the car, then my mom got in.

“You shouldn’t have gone to the front while Ashley’s friends were over. You did do everything you could have done. We don’t have to leave, we can stay,” my mom stated before I started the car.

Yiippee!!! She admitted she was wrong, but as long as Ashley’s friends stayed there would be no peace. “Nope, let’s go home. I called Aunt Lavonia and she’ll meet us at the house to see the kids do their fireworks.”

Ten minutes into the drive we discovered we left the video camera so I turned around and back we went. My mom returned to the car with the camera.

“Really, we can stay if you want,” she mentioned again.

I noticed Ashley’s friends were gone. But nope, we’re going home where I can give baths and my kids and I can relax in peace. “No, let’s go home.”

And home we went, Aunt Lavonia and Uncle Bobby arrived just as I was finishing the girls’ bath. Nothing says 4th of July like watching fireworks in your pajamas.

The baby was frightened for the majority of the fireworks that Uncle Bobby set off as Jory and later, Rowan, after Jory was threatened into sharing the fireworks with his sister, handed to him.

After our fireworks were finished, the sun was completely down and others in the neighborhood were getting started. Some of our neighbors had money because their fireworks were lighting up the sky. There was something so patriotic about seeing red, white, and blue light up the sky, knowing the cops were looking the other way, since it’s illegal to light them in LA.