Holiday shmoliday

Long holiday weekends annoy me. Particularly because here I am exhausted at the end of one and everyone else is all fresh and, well, perhaps hung over. Fine, exhausted for a different reason. All sunburned and overfed and smokey throated from cookouts and sitting by pools and watching fireworks. See, I'm a holiday lover. Before I had kids who, for the first years of their lives, are keeping me from having any. Because what is a holiday if I lose my usual childcare for the day? That seems like NOT a holiday to me.

And I want to laugh about the idiot hooligans who set off firecrackers in my neighborhood half the night but I'm trying to sleep here. Why? Because my molar teething daughter has kept me up for 3 nights straight waking every hour or two to complain about it loudly. Because in the morning I have to get up, dress, feed and clean them and take the to the park singlehandedly. While at the park I have to monitor them on a jungle gym, catch B as he slides down the slide head first, A as she eats sand, C as he finds a step to just sit on and cry for no reason. But I also apparently have to monitor the 8 year old daughter of a dad playing basketball in the nearby courts for some reason?

First of all, this park is divided into two play areas with fences. The one we're in, for very young kids, and the other one for kids her age. Where does she choose to play? Here. How many times to I have to remind her that she has to close the stinking door behind her on the way in and out because I have THREE running toddlers trying to escape at every minute? And why does she have to bring in a cup of water to play in the sand with, leaving two wet sandy spots for my kid to sit in and walk in after she's abandoned them? No, I don't bring a change of clothing to the park with me, why would I? And how bad of a mom am I to have to let my daughter run around with a big wet behind on a 60 degree day?

Dad? Whomever you are? I don't think your wife's idea for you to take your daughter to the park was this exactly. I don't think she was supposed to entertain herself completely, do you see this as father/daughter bonding time? Do you think she'll look back on these days fondly? Oh, remember dad, how you used to take me to the park and abandon me so you could pretend you were still single and play with those loud sweaty men a testosterone laden game of basketball? Right.

So, I leave the Independence weekend a little crabbier than before. Shocking I know, but I think my transition to grouchy old lady may be completing. I'm the one at the window looking out at the neighborhood fireworks (and I'm not talking little tiny fireworks, I'm talking they got the kind that shoot up over their 3 story houses and explode, lighting up the neighborhood and echoing for miles) grumbling and moaning about kids and hooligans and where are the police. I'm the one sending dirty looks to the dad on the b-ball court ignoring his lonely daughter. I'm the one who can't wait until next year when the kids are old enough to take to a fireworks display and maybe spend the day cooking out and baking ourselves in the sun. Wait, what? That doesn't fit. Ok, fine, I have a little holiday spirit left in me. Even if it is all in future fantasy land.