Four on the Fourth

Okay, okay.  I'm behind again.  So sue me.  

Fourth of July.  Independence Day.  I absolutely love my country.  I vote.  I cover my heart when the anthem's sung.  I get all misty-eyed when I hear patriotic songs.  I fly my flag.  Honestly, I love America.  It's the greatest country in the world, and I'm not even biased.  I've been to other countries.  They're nice, but America?  Well, it's my home and the land that I love.  

It may come as a bit of a surprise, given my gushing, if I tell you that I hate celebrating the 4th.  What it represents is great.  How we celebrate?  For a woman who has major anxiety that is triggered by many things, one of the worst being sudden, loud noises, you can imagine that my miswired brain goes a little haywire and my nerves go into overdrive.  I just hate the bangs and the whistles and the booms and the blinding fire.  If I were a puppy, I'd be in a heightened state of excitement, and I'd pee every time a firecracker went off.  It's a good thing I'm not a puppy and just a mom.  I only pee when I sneeze, cough, or laugh.  

One comfort I get from the chaos of the holiday is that I get to spend it with my family.  The one I married into.  They're a fun bunch of people from all different ends of the zany spectrum of life.  This year, all the family from the 4 corners of the globe--I really never understood that phrase since a globe is clearly cornerless--gathered for a rip roarin' good time.  One of my husband's cousins has a couple of stinking cute kids, and one of them is just a couple months older than my Titus.  

Titus and Reese made quite a pair last night.  Reese is 4.  Titus is going to be 4 in a matter of days.  One thing that makes me just a bit sad about where we live is that my kids don't have cousins their own age.  Reese and his little sister are in California.  My brother's kids are in North Carolina.  Whenever the little cousins can get together, it's a beautiful and wonderful thing.  

Reese and Titus did a little circling of each other, kind of like dogs do before they decide to be friends.  Once they established that the other was an acceptable playmate, they went for fun with reckless abandon.  What joy, what bliss when they found a cooler full of ice.  A bottomless snack for their little mouths to enjoy.  They'd stick a cube or 4 in their mouth and then decide that was too much of a commitment before spitting it back in the cooler.  The ecstasy of unattended bowls of chips!  Their little fists grabbed more than their mouths could hold, and spit-covered crumbs made their way back into the bowl while the boys shoveled the chips in with complete glee.  

Then came the fireworks.  Each pop was met with shrieks of joy.  Every bang was accompanied by delirious cries of "AWESOME!"  Their little fists pumped the air and their little legs bounced up and down with each mortar that flew into the air and exploded with a shower of sparkling beauty.  While the air noisily filled with a cloud of sulfur-scented smoke, it dawned on me.  Watching these two little boys with their unchecked joy and their self abandon had kept my anxiety down to almost nil.  Their wonder and their obliviousness to the world around them made my fourth not only tolerable but absolutely enjoyable.  

To be four on the Fourth is truly a wonder.  I look forward to next year, but I'll make sure I eat as many chips as I can before the boys find them.