Up, Up and Away!

My girl loves, loves, loves balloons!

Too much.

I remember when she was about 2, we got a balloon at the checkout stand in the market, as soon as we were out in the parking lot, it popped. She was utterly heart broken! I couldn't stand to hear her cry like that. So like any good mother, I marched right back into the store and asked the cashier for another balloon to soothe my baby's aching heart. We fix what we can, you know.

Not long after that incident, we got another balloon at the same place. We made it all the way home and were walking down the driveway to show her daddy her gorgeous yellow balloon, when, oops!, she let go, and it floated up into the tree. Too high to be able to get it, even with a ladder. Again, total devastation. She begged me to get it for her--with alligator tears streaming down her face, sobbing. I explained that I couldn't get it. Daddy can get it! She was sure he would be her knight in shining armor and retrieve her treasure. But daddy couldn't get it either, it was completely out of reach (unless we had a cherry picker...but those don't just grow on trees around here). It took her a long time to recover from that one because the balloon was just sitting there in the tree for weeks, a painful reminder of her loss.

Flash forward a couple of years and many other sad balloon moments. One day both R2 and C2 got a balloon from the market, and as usual, we headed out to the parking lot, R2 holding on to hers for dear life and C2 gleefully waving his around. Then it happened: C2 let go of his balloon. Ugh, I thought, he's going to have a breakdown. But he didn't. He just watched it go up, up, up. Unaffected. R2, however, was a wreck about it. She cried. She begged me to go back in and get him another one. I pointed out that she still had her balloon in her hand and that if C2 lost his, that was his problem, not hers.

Next thing I know we're at the market again (surprise, surprise). On the way in R2 reminds herself and me, "If we get balloons and something happens to C2's, that's his problem, not mine." So proud of my girl! She's learning!

Well, needless to say, that was momentary. Balloon. Heartbreak. Balloon. Heartache. I finally said to her, "Maybe we shouldn't get anymore balloons. You can just say no thank you if someone offers them to you." I assumed she'd balk. Not so. Since that day, when we drive into the market's parking lot she tells me and anyone who will listen, "We're not getting any balloons!" (That includes C2).

Cashier at the market: "What color balloon would you like?" R2: "I don't want one, thanks. And neither does my brother."

Hair stylist: "Would you like a balloon?" R2: "No thank you."

Now she gets stickers from whomever is offering them. Mostly she sticks them all over herself, but yesterday, she stuck them on the car window. Argh! Now she's begging me to "let them stay there for just a year. That's all. Please, mamma!"

I can't stand it.