4th of July

After my sister came to visit, Sean, Stephen and I went down to Houston for the 4th of July.  We discovered that Stephen LOVES fireworks.  We just shot fireworks on the street in front of some family friends, but he couldn’t get enough.  You never know what kids will like and what they won’t.  He kind of freaked me out because he kept saying, “I want to shoot them, I want to shoot them.” then we told him he could when he was older.  This past week he said to me at breakfast, “Mommy, when I’m older, can we shoot fireworks for my birthday?” He then went with Sean and others to get more fireworks.  This boy couldn’t get enough.  I was reflecting later with Jon, who is from Boston, and we realized that one of the reasons that it kind of freaked me out is that we didn’t really shoot off fireworks in the street at my house growing up.  First off, there was some kind of thing like it was illegal except on July 4th??? (or we just broke the law on July 4th? I’m not sure).  Second, we got fireworks from South Carolina, the closest place to get them, when we went to Hilton Head for vacation.  We didn’t get a lot either. I remember the poppers and the snakes and the sparklers. I remember the fountains being the most adventurous, not the kind of stuff that is available today.  Stephen LOVED the poppers, which I absolutely hate, probably due to some big brother of mine using them to scare the pants off me.  We finally gave him a sparkler, which I think brought home to Stephen that it was fire.  From then on, he watched safely and quietly, but still mesmerized.  Picture is coming, I still have to process the pictures.