Parade Fun

We went to our first parade of the summer last night. If we were willing to put forth a little more effort to drive to more small town parades, I’m sure we could have made it to at least a dozen by now. These days, though, making it to FestAg & Kernel Days each summer is about the best we can do.

The kids had a good time. Chris headed up early with Caleb, Amata & Cameron to enjoy some rides, and then Tyler, Baylee & I went up right before the parade with some DQ cheeseburgers for dinner. (Because nothing says I love you like fat soaked cheeseburgers to clog your arteries) CJ was at the parade, too, but his paternal grandmother is in town this week, so he hung out with her for the day.

Caleb, Baylee & Amata all enjoyed the parade, and got more candy than they will ever eat. But now I can throw away the rest of their Easter candy. There was a girl sitting about 10 feet down from us who kept running in front of us and taking “our” candy, but when she tried to take my the kids’ candy corn, her parents finally noticed my expression and made her give it back to our kids and told her to stay by them. After all, it is an unwritten rule at parades that you don’t run in front of people and take the candy thrown to them!

Amata & Caleb had a couple of ride tickets left, so after the parade, we headed over to ride the carousel. While we were waiting for our turn, a woman came up and said, “hi, I’m J**’s mom.” She is Amata, Caleb & Baylee’s biological grandmother. Amata has been in our care for almost 4 years, and I have never seen this woman before in my life. J**’s cousin, who I do know, was also there, so I do believe that’s who she is, it was just kind odd.

She were nice, she just wanted to take a picture of the kids. She did ask a few questions about them, and so I told her about Caleb’s speech and Amata’s FAS. She said that J** was also very aggressive when she was Amata’s age, so according to her, it’s probably just hereditary. (Because I’m sure she never abused alcohol while she was pregnant.) I also couldn’t help but wonder to myself if J**’s aggressiveness started before or after mom’s boyfriends began sexually abusing her, because one might think that could cause some undesirable behavior. I was polite to her, though, and did let her take their picture.

After that it was definitely time to go home, since it was everybody’s bedtime. CJ got back about 10 minutes after us, he was so tired he didn’t even notice when I took him out of his car seat and took his jacket off before putting him to bed. He ended up sleeping until 10 this morning…and then grandma was back around 12 to pick him up again – I could get used to this, but sadly, she heads back to California this weekend. Guess I’ll just enjoy it while it lasts.