Eight

I will never forget the first time I looked into Miguel's face and uttered my first words as his mother, "What's with the nose?" In my defense, I was exhausted. In defense of his nose, I pushed for two and a half hours which can wreak a little havoc on a baby's facial features. Eight years have passed since that day and, most days, I look at him with the same sense of wonder. I say "most" because I like to keep it real and there are days when I pay too little attention or I pay attention to the wrong things. We spent Miguel's birthday (also known as The Fourth of July) at home surrounded by friends. We had the best water balloon fight in the history of water balloon fights with secret stashes and ambushes and lots of laughter and screaming. We had birthday cake and chased it with cotton candy because it seemed like the right thing to do. Was there Slide Climbing? Of course! There will always be Slide Climbing though there will be waivers to sign next time because a guest did suffer an injury (nothing permanent or disfiguring).

As the sun set, we headed to the park and I watched as Miguel took the hands of his little sister and his little friend Joel and led them through the crowd to see the fire eaters. He got them so close to the performers that they likely felt the heat of the fire. I stood in the back and watched him, not because I needed to but because I wanted to, realizing that I trusted him. Eventually, we all sat down on the grass to watch the sky explode in sparks and color and feel the booms in our bodies. When it was all over, we dragged and carried the kids home and put them to bed fully clothed. For the past eight years, the Fourth of July has been quite memorable and pretty damn amazing. Hope you all had a great weekend!

p.s. You can check out the rest of our Fourth of July pics here.

p.p.s. Happy belated birthday to my friend Amy W. who also has a July 4th b-day!