A Wet Fourth of July

How was your Fourth of July? Ours had its ups and downs, but mostly had a lot of water.

Mira was so excited for this year’s holiday because she was going to be in a parade for the first time. Her gymnastics class has a float in the Hilliard parade every year, and since she’s been taking classes for over a year now she talked me into letting her buy the special parade leotard and join in. As we drove to the parade set-up site, the clouds loomed overhead and I hoped the rain would hold off.

Once we were there, Mira’s excitement turned to nerves. Suddenly she decided she only wanted to do it if she could ride on the trailer and not walk behind it doing cartwheels. She’s still a beginner, so I understand her concern with doing cartwheels. Half of the time she ends up on the ground when doing a cartwheel. The trailer was for five and under to ride on, but her coach said she could ride if there was enough room, since she just turned six.

I’d have rather she walked, and told her that next year she was either walking it or she wasn’t doing the parade at all. Parents were walking beside the trailer, handing out flyers about the gymnastics school to families in the crowd. I worked more than Mira did for this parade.

Aaron was asked to help a local comic book store for the parade, too, walking along as one of the costumed superheroes with their float. Since that would leave no one to watch Cordy, he brought her along for the store’s trailer, dressed in her pirate princess costume. She planned to ride on the trailer a little, and then help pass out comic books to the crowd some, too, while Aaron greeted the crowd as Superman.

Two local kid favorites – Ronald McDonald and Superman

The parade started late, and just as we were beginning to move, we felt the first drops of rain. By the time we made it out onto the street, it was a steady drizzle. The coach tossed some umbrellas and ponchos in the trailer for the kids to use, so I helped Mira suit up into a poncho.

Mira was not happy about the rain, and all of my reminders about “smile and wave” went out of her mind. She sat there frowning like a grump unless I specifically looked at her and told her to smile and wave. Then she would perform for awhile, before half-heartedly waving while looking down to the ground, eventually just holding her hand up with no movement. Repeat times one hundred.

I was telling her to smile and wave here.

It didn’t help that as the parade was progressing, she saw candy on the street. Some of the groups ahead of us were tossing candy to the crowd, and now Mira thought being in a parade was just awful since she couldn’t get any candy. As I was walking, I picked up a couple of lollipops and tootsie rolls that hadn’t been smushed by trucks ahead of us, promising she could have them after the parade.

That incentive didn’t work well, though, since her gaze suddenly was locked on the street for the remainder of the parade, trying to spot more candy. She’d yell for me to pick something up, and I had to keep telling her it was crushed and to focus on the people standing in the rain to see the parade instead. (95% of the candy I saw was either opened or crushed.)

Of course, right near the end of the parade? It stopped raining. Figures.

It wasn’t until we all met up again and were getting in the car that I noticed Cordy was starting to act edgy and upset by the crowd. I also noticed a thin blue outline around Cordy’s mouth. “Cordy, what did you eat during the parade?”

Cordy immediately got nervous and started stammering a few starts to an answer before deciding on, “I was eating blueberries.” She lied. On one hand, it’s uncommon for kids with autism to lie, so yay for progress! On the other hand, blueberries don’t make your mouth look electric blue and I had a bad feeling about what she ate.

“Try again,” I told her. “What did you eat?”

“It was a lollipop, but it was totally free of artificial dyes, I promise!” Again, not true. No one had expensive natural dye lollipops in the parade. She even considered saying that Aaron allowed her to eat it, but stopped mid-sentence when she knew I’d just verify that with him.

Turns out, it was a blue Dum-Dum pop, which she is well aware is off-limits. She said she found it on the trailer, but it’s more likely she picked it up off the ground when she was walking beside the trailer, then got back onto the trailer to hide and eat it where Aaron wouldn’t see her.

I’m still angry about that lollipop, because her behavior was completely off the rest of the day. (And the next two days, too – we received a call from her summer camp about unusual behaviors on Friday, and they’ve never called us before.) It’s nearly out of her system now, but I didn’t need this unpleasant reminder as to why we keep artificial dyes off-limits.

After the parade, we visited my family for a cookout, then came back home to relax a little before our local fireworks. I was secretly hoping they’d cancel the fireworks so I could send two very tired little girls to bed early.

Quick nap on the way home, cuddling her Seat Pet.

There was a brief period of dry weather, so it was expected that the fireworks would still happen. Then more rain started to approach the area, so they moved the fireworks start time up by 40 minutes.

It still wasn’t early enough for Cordy. Her internal clock, made even stronger by a ramped up day on blue dye, shut her down before 9pm.

I tried to get a photo of Cordy asleep, but Mira had to jump in to gloat that she was still awake.

We went outside just as the fireworks started. (The one nice thing about our neighborhood is that the fireworks are launched not far from us, and we can see them clearly from our driveway.) And just as they started, it began to rain. Again. So much for moving them up to avoid the rain.

Aaron, Mira and I huddled under umbrellas and watched the local fireworks from our driveway. While the rain dampened the block parties that usually happen that night, it sadly didn’t keep the mosquitoes away. By the time we came back inside, I had a lovely collection of itchy bumps on my ankles and the backs of my knees.

As soon as the fireworks were over? It stopped raining.

Hope your holiday wasn’t as wet as ours!