Festive Flop

I'm still chuckling over my recklessness on this one. Good thing kids are quite resilient. I did jokingly say, though, that I'll have to make a contribution to Aliza's future therapy fund for the trauma I inflicted tonight! lol.

I found out at 5:30 that my sister, Janell, and some friends were going to go to the Pocomoke Christmas Parade tonight. Jeremy was getting home late and I was in the holiday mood and I thought Aliza might like the music and lights so I decided to go along. We ate supper and headed out at 6:20 to meet Janell. The parade started at 7:00. Met Janell at her friend's house and they were still going to eat supper so Aliza and I headed down to Market St. We found a spot right about 7:00 and a little while later a family that I knew from my previous job showed up....all was going well.

Aliza started running around about 7:15. I was ok with that. But when this other Mom showed up she had her kids dressed in hats, gloves, snowpants, boots, etc. and she even had a thermos of hot chocolate with her.....and a bag of marshmallows! I started thinking...."I guess it is pretty cold out here." I had Aliza in her warmest coat with her hood up, but no special pants or shoes and I don't even own a pair of mittens for her. About the time this is going through my head Aliza takes a spill and her (very cold) hands slap the pavement. She CRIES and doesn't stop and Janell is nowhere to be seen and I'm not feeling very festive anymore. The "good" Mom lets Aliza borrow her little girl's mittens (she was taking them off anyway) and that helps a bit and Janell finally shows up and lets Aliza play with her cell phone and that helps a lot.

Now it is 7:35 and I realize that we have situated ourselves at the end of the parade route. Mental note to self is made for next time... Finally, the parade starts at 7:45 and we begin with a whole string of police cars who are all stopped in front of us which means that they all start blowing their sirens. No tears from Aliza, but she starts saying "no, no, no....." Then the Pocomoke High School marching band is next and I think that just maybe we will be redeemed because Aliza loves music, but the "no, no, no, no..." chant continues and I know that we are done in. The final clincher was the great big fire dog mascot that came walking towards us.

So we got back in the stroller, walked back to Janell's friends house only to find out that we had someone parked behind us in the driveway. My heart fell. My daughter is still saying "no, no, no..." I was able to drive through the backyard and thankfully there was a another driveway that I could leave from.

Aliza was still cold when we got home. Dada was waiting for her. And she told him about the parade...."No, no, no", "Boom, boom (that's the band)" and Brruummm....(car noises....that's the police cars)" We got her in some warm jammies and her room is the coziest in the house so now she is warm and sleeping soundly.

So the clincher for me was that when I opened my computer to write this blog the weather on my desktop says it is currently 27 degrees. I had NO IDEA it was that cold. I thought it was about 40. My, my, my I'll do better next time!!!!