Firework

Last night, I took my kids to a parking lot close to our minor league baseball stadium to enjoy a fireworks display. Glamorous, I know. It was crowded and crazy. We had a guy walk by and ask if we would be able to see the fireworks from where we parked. Turns out...we couldn't. Guess he saw three pairs of young, eager, excited eyes and knew what a fool their mama was. But we were able to walk down several spaces to find a choice spot. Not that big of a fool, thank you very much!

Before the pyrotechnics list the sky, I kept thinking, "This was a mistake. It's late at night (WAY past bedtime!), and the traffic afterwards will be a nightmare..." Oh, did I mention my husband and brother were at the game? I had dropped them off earlier so they wouldn't have to deal with parking. Yes, they would need a ride home, and we'd either have to duke it out with hundreds of thousands of cars (perhaps not quite that many...but close) or sit and wait it out.

We sat. And waited. And this foolish mama uncomfortably distracted her children while the dude in the car next to us macked on his girlfriend (child of the 80s here).

All that said, did it turn out to be the mistake I thought?

Nope.

Not when my three-year-old's face lit up brighter than the bursts of light in the sky. Not when my five-year-old cried out, "Happy birthday, America!" Not when my seven-year-old stepped close to rest his head against my side.

It wasn't a mistake. It was a memory. And it's a good one.

God bless America!