This Magic Moment

As a parent, I spend a fair amount of time, effort, and money trying to create sparkling childhood memories for my kids. When we took our trip to Florida in March, I had these visions of fantastic walks by the beach, tasty picnics, playing at the park. And yes, we did all of those things. But they also seemed to be accompanied by their fair share of whining and desperately needed bathrooms and fighting with one's sister.

We had planned to take the girls to see fireworks on Saturday evening. We took Ella three years ago, and it was a disaster. Another "perfect" moment ripe for the plucking--except that Ella promptly freaked out due to the noise of the fireworks. But this year, I figured both girls were finally old enough. I bought a bunch of snacks and planned stuff to do while we waited for it to get dark. But then it rained Saturday afternoon. And rained. And rained. The girls were teary and upset, but when we suggested that we go see a movie instead (we let them nap late, so we REALLY needed an evening activity!), they quickly got behind the idea to go and see Up! The evening finally cleared, but by that time, the girls were set on seeing a movie and decided they'd rather do that than see fireworks.

We went to the movie, where many snacks were consumed. The girls mostly enjoyed the movie, though I found some of the plot to be bizarre and far-fetched (even for a kid's movie!). Sadie was getting sleepy and kept asking when the movie would be over. But when we left the theater and I suggested driving close to where the fireworks were going to be—just to see if we could spot any—Sadie was strongly behind the idea, as was Ella. As it turned out, we spotted a ton of people set up in this park near to the fireworks but without all of the traffic and congestion that was going on right BY the fireworks. We figured we'd look for a place to park and just see. Found a place to park somewhat easily, and the whole sleepy family headed over to where the crowd was. We didn't have a picnic blanket (some of us didn't even have sweatshirts), so we plopped down on the sidewalk to watch the fireworks. Everything about the moment was simply perfect. The girls were absolutely enthralled by the fireworks. There was no whining or fighting or clawing or scratching. Just a simple, happy, accidental family moment. Perfect. (And not a camera in sight, which is always the way with the really magical moments. Oh well, it would have been too dark anyway.)