I headed back to my brother and sister-in-law’s house last Monday to celebrate the Fourth of July with them. On my way out of Colorado Springs, I saw smoke from a fire in the foothills:

A plane flew over, and I was close enough to see it drop slurry onto the fire. I guess the efforts worked, because the fire was out when I returned the next day. It was one sobering reminder that we’re in the midst of fire season; another reminder came in the form of signs along the highway announcing a Level 2 fire ban. This means not only can no one set fires outside (no campfires, bonfires, grilling, etc), but even smoking cigarettes outside is prohibited.

Kind of made me wonder why fireworks are still allowed. But what do I know? 🙂

Everyone was in festive form when I arrived. My sister-in-law does very cute things with my niece’s toenails. To wit:

My niece has the cutest pudgy baby legs. She’s already trying to boost herself up and crawl, and I’m sure when she succeeds she’ll slim down quickly.

Their church was holding an ice cream social/firework watching party, so we headed into town, grabbed some burgers, and went to the church. My brother was in charge of games–he didn’t get to pick the games, he basically just emceed. He was grousing about it, and I asked how he ended up involved. “They asked me and asked me and I finally just gave in,” he said. His wife called BS. “They asked him ONCE, and he immediately said he’d do it.” “Well, they would have kept bugging me if I hadn’t said yes right away,” he muttered.

Yeah, not feeling sorry for ya, bro.

When we pulled into the lot, we saw several deer grazing on the church lawn. Zach wanted to chase them, so my brother told him to go for it and ran along behind.

Fortunately, the deer took off. At least my brother’s a fun dad, right?

More people arrived, including my nephew’s two BFFs. My brother led a small group of people in an egg toss, a balloon toss (Zach and his buds had a blast with the leftover supplies from that), a watermelon-eating contest, and a sunflower-seed-spitting contest. (Did I mention that someone else came up with these games?)

I spent a good chunk of time swatting mosquitoes, chasing my nephew and/or his friends around, and taking photos of the beautiful views.

When the fireworks started, Zach freaked out. He threw himself onto his mother’s neck, shrieking and shaking. She carried him into the church to try to calm him down, but he wanted to go sit in the “new truck.” Apparently that was the only place he felt safe; he didn’t even want to watch the fireworks through the window in the church gymnasium. “Fi’works scare me,” he told me tearfully, clinging to his mother.

Partway through the show, my brother went to the truck, wanting to comfort his son. As soon as the fireworks ended, they emerged. My brother started chatting with some friends and my nephew snuggled in his daddy’s arms, his face streaked from all those tears.

“Mowique, fi’works go BOOM!” he told me.

“Yeah, they’re pretty loud, aren’t they?” I said, knowing that the noises were what had terrified him.

He nodded, bit his lip, and then said sagely, “Yeah. Pretty neat.”

I cracked up. He’d spent twenty minutes crying and shaking and now the fireworks were “pretty neat”? Well, at least he wasn’t permanently traumatized.

He kept staring keenly in the direction the fireworks show had been. Every once in awhile, someone would set off another firework, and he’d get all excited and point it out to everyone in proximity. We could also see the headlights of people leaving the area where the fireworks display had taken place, and occasionally Zach got really excited and mistook headlights for “fi’works.”

In the car on the way home, the WHOLE way home, he kept chattering about the “fi’works” and how “very cool” they were. Every once in awhile, one of us adults would say, “Were you scared?” and he’d shake his head thoughtfully and say, “Nooo.” As I told my brother, the kid was full of it, albeit in the cutest possible way.

The only time he stopped talking about the fireworks was when he reached up and tugged on his tongue. Then he turned to me, perplexed. “My tongue’s stuck!” he said. “Stuck in mouth! Can’t get it out!”

I love that kid.

When I left the next afternoon, he was hanging out by the front window of his house, talking wistfully about how the “fi’works go BOOM!” and asking if he would get to see more fi’works that evening.

He’s a pint-sized badass, all right.