Before the parade
We had a wonderful July Fourth. Guillermo, Maya and Will started the day by decorating our bikes for the parade from Weaver Street to Town Hall. For his trail-a-bike, Guillermo taped one red streamer to his handle bars "because that's all it needed. My bike is blue," he reasoned. He also taped a flag to the back and wrapped a wiry string of metallic stars around it. "I made a nebula," he declared. Maya and Guillermo wrapped blue streamers around Maya's trailer and attached another flag to it.
The parade is a pedestrian/bike parade that crosses about two blocks. At the end of the route is a festival with a bouncy house and slide, games, music, scraps from the Scrap Exchange and food. Maya wanted to play the ring toss and other games so she could win candy. Guillermo was content with the bouncy slide, but only once because the line was too long after his first turn. Later, we went to a friends' house for a wonderful barbecue and the kids played.
But the best part of the day, for me anyway, was taking Maya to see the fireworks at the UNC stadium. Guillermo wanted to keep playing at the barbecue so Will stayed with him and I took Maya. She loved watching the fireworks last year after a baseball game with my parents and on that 20-minute ride home repeated "Fireworks, show mommy, pretty-o" over and over and over again. She wanted to see them this year and we didn't want to let her down, although Will and I both feared the fireworks would be too loud for our suddenly loud noise-averse daughter.
Maya and I arrived at the stadium about 8:30 p.m. As we walked there, I showed her the hospital where she was born and she talked all about being a baby. ("Yaya and grandpa visited me there?" "Guillermo tickled me?" "You were so happy?") We bought water, watched the band ("they are wearing costumes!"), played with a friend and stood in a long line for ice cream as we waited for the 9:30 p.m. start. About 20 minutes before showtime, we found seats next to a girl from Guillermo's preschool and her mother. Maya ate her ice cream and then played with the girl, as happy and smily as could be. Finally, the show started with a woman singing the National Anthem. I picked Maya up so she could see and we snuggled close, cheek to cheek, smiling. It was so sweet and I thought about how this was becoming one of my favorite summers and this was one of my favorite nights. Something behind us distracted Maya and she turned to look and a few seconds later the woman ended the song. And, just as she ended, fireworks, LOUD fireworks, exploded. Maya flipped her head to the noise and her face, a few seconds ago full of joy, was frozen with terror. Her hands snapped to hear ears. "Too loud," she managed to say. It was loud. I hugged her closer, and told her it was OK and tried to point out the pretty colors. "Too loud," she said choking back tears. "Do you want to go?" I asked. "Yes," she said. And, we ran out of the stadium, about 30 seconds after the fireworks started.
I stopped frequently on the way back to the car so we could watch the fireworks explode in the sky, pointing out all the colors. Maya admitted she liked them and admired the "diamonds, gold, rubies and emeralds" bursting in the sky but after a few seconds each time, she covered her ears and said "too loud. I don't want to see them anymore."
We got back to the car at 9:59 p.m. She fell asleep six minutes later.
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