the 4th on the 8th

America....happy happy belated birthday.

I hope you enjoyed the boy's rounds of the Pledge of Allegiance and "Happy Birthday to You" after our intro to American history lesson over breakfast on your big day. We've discussed on many occasions that Captain America was not one of the Founding Father's but no one in our home under the age of 5 seems to believe us.

The festivities began on Saturday with the returning of our IKEA Malm dresser with the recall came out. I don't doubt that when properly anchored the dressers are totally safe. However. I also do not doubt my cherubic childrenz ability or desire to mess with the anchors so back to the motherland it went.

Here's a fun freedom influenced story for posterity. 

When we got to IKEA Jake waited in the return line with the dresser and I booked it to the best part of IKEA (in my opinion) the childcare. During the rules and regulation rundown, the IKEA employee reminded me that if my pager went off early that I should rush back IMMEDIATELY. There was an abundance of emphasis on the immediately portion. Noted. 

So about 10 minutes before our pick up time our pager started flashing and buzzing. Truthfully I assumed everything was totes OK and that an influx of kids meant our time had to be cut short. No biggie. So when we rounded the corner and heard shrieking and the word "naked" was getting thrown around I realized it probably wasn't looking to good for our "no biggie" hopes. 

We were greeted by 7 kids all hearded into the upper treehouse section of the play area. Their energy level was off the charts as their ring leader, a 8ish year old boy, kept screaming "He's butt naked! Naked! I CAN SEE HIS WEINER!! NAKED!!!" 

And then I saw naked Rad jump into the ball pit. And then I saw naked Rad do ninja tricks in front of the screaming children. And then go back to the ball bit. Still in his birthday suit.

Here's the thing about Rad...Rad and George Costanza share similar bathroom philosophies. Everything has to come off in order to do the business. The difference between them is that Rad still struggles to put everything back on. And in my rush to make sure they got a spot in the child care I didn't take them to the bathroom. Such a rookie mistake and my ears are still burning from it. 

Obviously the million, totally understandable, super strict rules about helping dress other people's naked kids meant that the IKEA employees were powerless to really do anything to remedy the situation. What I didn't expect when I showed up, was that they wouldn't even let me dress him till a manager showed up to hawk eye me corralling and remedying the nudist issues. So I just hung out in the office section till said manager made his appearance and watched my naked son let freedom ring while not making eye contact with any of the other parents giving me the well deserved side eye. There really are no words for moments like this.     

So we got ice cream. Because. IKEA will probably never let us back in. 

Moving on.

On the actual holiday we ate doughnuts. Rhett really likes to throw down some finger signs when we take pictures with food in them. See above and below. 

Jake took the boys to see Finding Dory. They weren't excited at all. Total party poopers. 

Beck was a party animal at the carwash with his dearest mother. 

Especially when he discovered the leftover snacks I was trying to vacuum up. The old graham crackers were the clear winner. What can I say? Only the best for the boys.

The rest of  evening went something like this.

- Beck refused to eat a celebratory cut up hot dog but preferred to sample the sidewalk chalk. Again. The Miller logic knows no bounds.

- The boys fought over the source of all backyard fun...the hose.

- Matching bodies. (Just kidding honey. ;)) 

- Oh look. I was there too. 

- I won't let my kids turn on the oven, but I will give them a sparkler and say, "Here, go wave this fire stick above your head for a while." Logic. 

- Jake was the master of ceremonies and graced the block with the Hamilton soundtrack (read: sing along). I thought it was pretty clever to use a lyric to caption this Instagram.

- Ben needed extensive words of affirmation and physical touch (his love languages) to recover from the fire work extravaganza. He wasn't feeling especially patriotic even with his red white and blue bandana that he refused to wear. It's OK Ben, there are 361 days to recover before next 4th of July.

Happy America day everyone. :)