Go Bears!

The last four years, I’ve made a little tradition starting with Ella and branching out to Lily. We go to the homecoming parade through town. It’s a great parade, it lasts about 10 minutes, there’s a fire truck and police cars, and ample candy.

The only downside of the parade is the ample middle school and young high school students. I know I’m now old when I find their behavior obnoxious and seriously considered talking to a few of them. Especially the middle school boys across from us who were using the candy as a projectile weapon aimed at the students on the floats. While I didn’t like them throwing the candy at the participants, I really didn’t like when they missed their intended targets and candy whipped past my babies heads. Momma bear was ready to attack should the time come. Thankfully, I could put my claws away when a teacher approached them and used that tried and true behavioral modification approach of proximity. 

After picking the girls up from school, we stopped at the bakery to get a little treat of “sprinkler cookies” and then found a good parade viewing position. Unfortunately, it was a grey, drizzly day and we had to dodge a few raindrops while waiting for the festivities, but the girls didn’t seem to mind. They busied themselves with some decorative rocks surrounding a tree.

The bears colors are orange and black, not purple and rainbow stripes in case you were wondering.

The girls were rather conservative with their candy collection, but carefully put each piece in their sweatshirt pockets. However, my faith in teenagers was somewhat restored when a group of very nice girls came up to my girls and offered their candy which Ella and Lily gratefully accepted and packed into their pockets. They only managed to eat a few pieces before it was confiscated. One candy piece did show up during a shake down of Lily’s sweatshirt a week later which she quickly made disappear before Mom could put it in the out-of-reach candy bowl.