River Night or bust?

We recently went to River Night in town!  Our town has a rib festival every July, and the Friday night before is just a big party by the river.  It was a little rainy this year, but it looked like the major rain wasn’t going to hit, and we decided to go.

The evening started off well.  We walked along the river.  Ben got to throw rocks into the river, his favorite thing to do.  The girls were reasonably happy, and I was enjoying watching Pat and Ben play.  A bit of rain rolled through, but really just a misting.  Ben actually wanted to participate in some of the activities this year, which was so fun!  He bounced in the bounce house and got a balloon.  You know those are major things when you are two years old.  So far, so good.  Little did I know some major mom fails were coming.

Then we decided it was time to get some ribs.  I mean, it was supposed to be a rib event, it’s what you do.  Pat went to go stand in line for the family.  As I was trying to get the kids to an open place to wait, Ben managed to walk into a table and hit his head.  Poor kid.  I comforted him, and he got a toothbrush from the man running the table he whacked his head into.  Thanks local dentist!  The gentleman was very nice about it.  Oh, that does mean that I let me kid walk head first into a table in front of a  bunch of witnesses, so yay for that mom moment.

I wrangled the kids over to watch a tae kwon do demonstration.  Ben was really into it!  He yelled out, “Pup Fu!”  Now, if you have a young child you might recognize that as an episode from Paw Patrol.  It was cute that he made the connection.  We were enjoying it, but then the mist started again.  The girls were not happy about it and started fussing pretty loudly.  I managed to get us to a more covered area, but by then the girls were, well, loud.  Awesome mom moment again.  

The motion of the stroller calmed the girls, but once we stopped Ali was just not having it.  She started full on crying, so I pulled her out of the stroller.  That helped a bit, but then Sammy started getting louder.  Twin problems here- it is hard to hold both babies at once, and, for me at least, almost impossible to pick them both up out of their seats at once.  I switched off holding the girls, trying to soothe them.  Ben was being a trooper through all of this.  I know it was hard for him to be dragged from spot to spot, and to have to wait for Pat to get back with the food.  But he was being awesome.  Of course he is still a toddler, so he thought spinning in a circle was a fun way to pass the time.  We were on a giant slab of concrete.  Ben’s balance isn’t always the best.  I mean, he’s two, he falls a lot.  I reached out to try to stop him from spinning so he wouldn’t fall.  Yep, you guessed it, I accidentally knocked him right over.  Awesome mom moment number three.  I was on fire this night. 😉

Fortunately Pat made it back to us then and was able to help with the girls while I made Ben feel better.  Despite all that, the rib stand was backed up on ribs, so we ended up with tacos.  Not our finest outing.  We left shortly after we ate, as the girls were just done with everything.  I have to laugh at the whole thing though.  So many parts of the evening were so fun.  And Ben did so well!  Then there were my great times of letting my kid walk into a table, all my kids crying, and knocking my own son ever.  Hmmm… maybe the rain wasn’t the issue, I was…  No, that can’t be right. 😛

At least we got a couple great pictures!