Freebies

On Saturday after having a restless night in the tent I had promised to take the boys to the Country Fest Parade. I decided to walk down because it wasn't that far and they had closed the road at the end of my parents street. I loaded Garrison in the stroller, had him hold the camp chair, placed a bag with a blanket and camera on the back and practically had to pull Ethan down the street so he would stay by me. I rounded the corner into the park and found a spot on the first piece of grass. We settled in with enough space around us ready to watch the parade!

Along comes a LARGE group of people who decided that we had chosen a good spot at the beginning of the parade route and decided to invade. I say invade because there was PLENTY of room all around us and down the route but they HAD to sit right next to us. I bit my tongue because after all I don't own the property. In fact I don't even pay taxes on it. I don't live in that town. I let it slide we shared. So the parade begins and of course the age old tradition of letting your children pick up candy off the ground to eat. My boys are not shy and will go for anything thrown at them IF they get the chance. I say IF because they didn't even have a chance. The mob of children next to us began taking EVERY piece of candy thrown. I told the boys not to worry there would be plenty of candy and after the kids next to us got tired there was plenty. It was just hard to see my kids bend to pick up candy and see the pre-teen next to them dive, take it and leave a peppermint in its place. What 4 or 6 year old wants peppermint instead of nerds or tootsie rolls? Really annoying.

That wasn't the worst of it. Or the thing that made me annoyed the most. They had the Jazz Bear there on a float throwing out posters, and aprons. He threw one right in front of us, Ethan went to get and out of nowhere, a GROWN UP and 3 kids dive for it and snatch it up just as Ethan is picking it up. He looked so shocked at what had happened and all I could say was that sometimes FREEBIES make adults act like children and some people are just rude. The guy looked at me and just laughed. AGHHHHHH!

Throughout the remainder of the parade I tried unsuccesfully to help the boys get balls, tiny toys, poster, and balloons with NO success. How can a small group of a mom and 2 boys compete with a family of 10 or more.

We left the parade with really enough candy to make them happy and a promise to come back to the carnival that afternoon. They also learned a lesson that sometimes FREEBIES no matter how big or small can make some people go CRAZY!!!