Our Fourth

Holidays that are meant to be enjoyed outside with a drink in your hand, BBQ, and friends are not meant for parents with toddlers. It just doesn't work, we have lived in Hawaii for almost four years now and this was our first with a toddler. Last year we stayed home and had a little BBQ, it was perfect with a three month old baby. The year before, when we were still childless was perfect. By that I mean, there was fireworks, cocktails and no one had to worry about naps or toddler melt downs.

This is what it looked like:

What happened to these people? notice how tan we both are and we probably had enough drinks this day to make me not care about kissing him in public or having a picture to prove it. I don't do this sober .
This year with a toddler in tote we argued all morning about who had "kid watch" and who got to relax with a drink by the pool. I lost that one and ended up chasing him around the pool and in it. We thought it would be smart to get a hotel room so we could go back and shower, change, feed Ricky and not fight traffic on the way home. That ended up being a good idea and a bad one, Ricky wanted to put every single germ covered surface in that room into his mouth (ugh!). He had several meltdowns that finally ended with us barely making it through the fireworks, which are after his bedtime. By the end of the day I was tired, angry and sad that my only thought at the end of the day was "man this would be so much more relaxing without the screaming kid".