pyrotechnophobia

he's definitely not the pyromaniac of the family yet. for the third year in a row, ryan has hated fireworks. it started when he was 11 months old—he was lying on the living room floor, and through the mini-blinds he caught a glimpse of the "pretties in the sky", and freaked out. it was the same story at 23 months. we brought him outside to look at the fireworks and he instantly screamed.

so this year we decided to go buy some kiddie fireworks to do with him. we got chickens, roosters, a turtle, tank, parachutes, flowers, fountains, sparklers, smoke bombs, etc. we played it all up for him, saying we'd have fun and blow them up after dinner.

since fireworks are illegal in kansas city, we went to a nearby legal city to set them off. we got our chairs set up, and daddy handed ryan a couple fireworks. what he did next cracked us up. apparently when we said we were gonna blow up the fireworks, he associated that with birthday candles...!





after ryan "blew up" most of the fireworks, it was daddy's turn. unfortunately i didn't warn ryan what they were gonna do! he liked the sparks at first (notice his cute little laugh!), but when that first chicken whistled, he freaked out. pyrotechnophobia again. and when daddy "bloke" (broke) the chicken, it set him over the edge!




ryan cried for the rest of the time and repeatedly wailed "no want it fireworks, no want it fireworks....!!!!" so daddy told him we could leave. i put ryan in the car as ben set off some more fireworks. and wouldn't you know? things suddenly got much better (as you can see at the end of this video!)



all i can say is, for spending $20 on fireworks and only setting off about $1.50, it was definitely worth the funny videos we got!