I love parades! I love being a part of a crowd, cheering on the beauty queens (since I never was and never will be one...I choose to live vicariously through those on the float), city floats, large balloons, and high school bands. I love watching the horses of all sizes pulling various wagons for various people of various causes. It seems that no matter what your purpose, cause, or company your message can be delivered effectively by horse and buggy. It was my love of parades that prompted my family's 4th of July activities. I had this great idea that we would wake up early and drive the hour, fight the traffic, and enjoy the festivities of the "American Freedom Festival." The day would start with the launching of the hot air balloons. I warned D and the boys for several days that the balloon launch started at 6:30 a.m. This meant that we would have to leave our house by 5:30 at the very latest, earlier if we wanted to park beforehand. I prefaced this with, "I want to have an enjoyable day. I do not want fighting or complaining about how early it is. If you do not want to go, let me know now and I will make other arrangements for you." Every single guy in my family agreed to accompany me. The boys showered early the night before and were in bed by 9:00 p.m., voluntarily! Fuss refused to go to sleep early, but with a little coaxing he seemed to realize he didn't have much choice. Sleep finally came for me, until the alarm rang at 4:00 the next morning. I hit the snooze...repeatedly. By 4:45 a.m. I decided that I could no longer prolong what I had started. I showered and started to get ready. At 5:15 I went downstairs and woke up the boys. I came back up to wake up my husband, who is not a morning person at 7:00, let alone at 5:15, which started the day off just as I had imagined but tried to avoid. Through the morning chaos of 6 exhausted people getting ready, we managed to get loaded in the car...camera, stroller, chairs, blanket, diaper bag, snacks, and yes, the kitchen sink. By 5:45 we were on the road. Normally our 15 minute delay would be no challenge for D, but as soon as we hit the freeway a Highway patrolman pulled in front of us and helped us to maintain the speed limit perfectly...all the way there. We arrived late and missed the launch of the balloons, but I was glad to see that the boys were fascinated by the large hot air balloons above us as we drove, and drove, and drove to find parking. Olie told us he had never seen a hot air balloon in real life before. Their excitement started to make me feel confident that the early morning adventure (and the earlier morning fight between unhappy D and I) was worth the effort of getting there. By the time we parked we had missed the launch of every balloon, but we still walked toward the field they were launching from. I was hoping that we would be able to see at least 1 land and that the boys would be able to see a balloon up close. We had to walk about 6 blocks through crowded streets to make it to the launching field. By the time we got there, D was worn out, Moo was still tired and not the most chipper child you have ever seen. He practically had to be dragged by D to keep up with the rest of us. Skater had stepped in front of a car pulling out of a parking lot and almost been hit, and Fuss was humming from his stroller. D was not in the mood to sit amongst the crowd waiting for balloons to land and suggested that we just move on to the parade. I was not about to tell my crowd-hating husband that we would have to back track, so I took him on a longer journey to get to the parade route. As we were walking we discovered that there was parking available for $5 right in between the balloons and the parade route, within 3 blocks of both. Needless to say, this discovery was not responded to well. By the time we reached the parade route we had walked nearly 1 1/2 miles. D had not worn very good walking shoes, which just added to his frustration. I have to admit that although I did anticipate some resistance to the activities, I took some great joy in the fact that the one who was complaining was the one who should have known to be better prepared--therefore I released myself from feeling any responsibility.
When we finally hit the parade route, the area was packed with people whom had spent the night to "save their places", or by those whom I can only assume live closer than we do. We ended up sitting on the road in the middle of a crosswalk--the only place we could find that was large enough to fit us all. We had a blanket for the boys to sit on, but the only place to lay it was behind another family's chairs. D and I had brought chairs for ourselves, but not the boys. We settled in as best we could and tried to save places for other members of my family (who do live closer, but were not yet there). Then the adventures began. Fuss had a dirty diaper, which had to be changed while he laid in the stroller, and there was no place to throw it away. Skater and Moo were lying on the blanket in the middle of the road fighting about who was closer to the edge. Olie sat in my chair while I followed Fuss as he wandered the streets fighting the crowd for entertainment. By this point we still had 2 hours before the parade even started! My sister brought relief when she showed up with breakfast, until Moo realized he would have rather gotten what Olie did. By the beginning of the parade we had filled in our small section of road with KM's family of 4, Gillette's family of 5, our family of 6, and my parents. We consisted of a wheelchair (my mom), 7 chairs, 2 blankets, and 2 strollers. The entire crosswalk (which was just a 2 lane road with a left hand turn lane) had well over 100 people in it, squishing us like little sardines who need to make new friends. The kids hadn't been able to see, so the family in front of us kindly offered to let them sit on their blanket in front of the crowd. Although this seemed like a great resolution, I soon came to realize that it is much harder to yell at your children to sit down so they don't get run over, to stop fighting, and to be nice with strangers lined up in between you and them. It was within the first 10 minutes of the parade that the sun came to it's peak and Olie complained that he was hot and asked if we could go home. Two hours of waiting had worn him out, but there was no way I was leaving at that point--I came to see a parade, and by golly that is what we were going to do! By mid-parade Skater was getting frustrated that he wasn't able to catch the many pieces of candy and random other items that were being thrown from the floats. Moo was crying because Skater was sitting too close to him. Olie elbowed Moo in the stomach for reasons that I am still unsure of. Fuss was exhausted and refused to go to sleep. Although, he was absolutely fascinated by the bands, horses, and motorcycles, the floats really did nothing for him and caused his attention to fluctuate, which in turn caused his fussiness to increase. My nephew was crying because his little brother had his hat. My niece was 
upset because she didn't have a chair beside her mom. All the while my dad was taking pictures of the reality that is a family outing. By the last 10 minutes of the parade we had spent ridiculous amounts of money purchasing 4 bottles of water and 8 Otterpops. We had stopped 1 bloody nose, broken up 3 fights, been poked with the mini flags Fuss was holding at least 6 times, changed seats 4 times, repacked the diaper bag in an attempt to find something at least twice, spilled 1 Diet Coke that ran towards the lady in front of us, changed 1 diaper, served 3 bottles to the babies, and moved to let people through more times than D would like to remember. D asked if we could start walking back to the car early--of course I refused, we came to see the parade and we were going to do it clear to the end! And through of all this adventure, I was brought to the realization that I loved parades...when I was single.
upset because she didn't have a chair beside her mom. All the while my dad was taking pictures of the reality that is a family outing. By the last 10 minutes of the parade we had spent ridiculous amounts of money purchasing 4 bottles of water and 8 Otterpops. We had stopped 1 bloody nose, broken up 3 fights, been poked with the mini flags Fuss was holding at least 6 times, changed seats 4 times, repacked the diaper bag in an attempt to find something at least twice, spilled 1 Diet Coke that ran towards the lady in front of us, changed 1 diaper, served 3 bottles to the babies, and moved to let people through more times than D would like to remember. D asked if we could start walking back to the car early--of course I refused, we came to see the parade and we were going to do it clear to the end! And through of all this adventure, I was brought to the realization that I loved parades...when I was single.
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