Balloon Blues

We've always had the occasional balloon around the house, some with helium and some without. Recently though, Xander learned (as most of us do at a young age) that a balloon could teach him a lesson in physics.

There's a little grocery store Xan and I love, called Trader Joe's, where they have specialty foods and little shopping carts for kids. With gas being $4/gallon we don't go out of the way to shop there, but it's close to Xander's occupational therapy facility so we make a trip every other Wednesday to stock up on some of Xan's special foods, as they're much cheaper here than at the larger retailers.



On this particular day they had blown up a lot of balloons, and Xander was offered one by the cashier. He doesn't really have a favorite color so I had no idea what he'd pick, but I was impressed with his selection of a magnificent purple balloon. Jason of course would say that it would be the obvious choice, as it is an LSU color, but it really was probably the prettiest balloon they had. It wasn't one of those opaque, filmy-colored balloons, but a translucent, deep purple that you could see someone in through the other side. Very satisfied with his selection Xander's balloon was tied around his wrist and he was warned to hold on to it tightly so that it didn't blow away outside.

It wasn't good enough to just have the balloon, but it had to come with us for the rest of the day. He even took it next door to Meijer, where it kept bopping me in the head as I pushed the cart. It rode him on his arm, came in the house and stayed through dinner. It reminded me of the French movie The Red Balloon, which I watched a lot in kindergarten.



The movie is about a little boy who has a balloon follow him all the time, basically like a stalker. I don't know if it was because we really liked it, or because there was no dialogue which made it quiet, but our kindergarten teacher used to show this movie all the time. Unlike most movies from elementary school where I was more fascinated watching the light come out of the projector, I used to face forward for this movie and actually watch it.

Then after dinner the balloon followed us outside. There was yet again another reminder of making sure to hold on to the balloon even though it's tied around our wrist, because it could slip off and float away. And then it did. And it was quick. As soon as the screaming started and we looked up, the balloon had already risen way above the house. Jason offered to pick Xander up and take him to the front yard so he could watch it's ascent and he actually agreed. So off we went, the four of us, to the front yard to watch the balloon. Without any trees around it was free of obstruction and headed pretty much due north as it traveled upward. Xander wanted to know if it was going to see Jesus and we told him probably. We said maybe Jesus was having a bad day and needed some cheering up by a big purple balloon. What else could we say? Even the next night he woke up crying about the balloon. He wanted to know if he prayed to Jesus would he tell the balloon he missed him. I assured him this would probably work, but that it wasn't going to make his balloon return and I don't think he liked that too much.

But since then we've had more balloons. We went to Red Robin for lunch on Father's Day, where they pass out balloons. He chose purple yet again, though it was more like an opaque lavender. And then last week we were back to Trader Joe's, where they only had white balloons available. He wasn't nearly as satisfied with either of these choices, but he has learned to hold on to them. So much so that now we have a balloon collection tied to the back of his chair in the kitchen. At some point we'll have to figure out a way to explain how balloons just "disappear" after we've carefully kept a handle on them, but that will have to be another day.

Mother's Day

So Mother's Day was going smoothly...the kids had been behaving, Jason got up early and fed them lunch and they were quietly coloring at the kitchen table. Enjoying my lazy rainy day I was still in my pajamas and halfway asleep on the couch when "it" happened. If you live here, and you know me fairly well, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, the tornado sirens went off. My mom has always said I have selective hearing, but I think a tornado siren could bring me out of a coma.

At first I thought it was routine. Our old house was in Franklin County and they test sirens at noon on Wednesday, but our new house is in Delaware County and they test on Saturday. So I thought that's about right, it's lunch-ish time and it's Saturday. But then I remembered that no, it's Sunday, and it's after 1 p.m. Surely, I thought, there couldn't be a tornado when it's not even 60 degrees out, the dew point is low and there's been no heating of the sun in the atmosphere since it's been raining all day. I'm a connoisseur of weather, always have been, and I've hung out with Jym Ganahl www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/authors.Bio.-content-midwest-cmh-authors-jim_ganahl.html enough times to know that even though tornadoes can be sneaky, the conditions just weren't right.

But true indeed it was, as I turned on the TV and saw the giant weather-map, the one they force you to watch the whole entire time the storm travels until it reaches the next closest state. Because we all know that whoever broadcasts the weather the longest, and shows you the most videos of the impending death (be it tornado, flooding, snow, what have you) is the best news station in town. So anyway, I had a slight panic as Xander starts asking "what's that noise" and Jason's in the driveway looking for funnel clouds, when I realized that the storm isn't even coming towards us. In fact, if anything it was starting to get a little sunny, so I couldn't even take any good scary sky pictures. It was going towards Jason's parents house though, so luckily we had been there the day before because they don't have a basement and things would not have been pretty had I been there for that. And speaking of which, we had a lovely cookout there and then we took the kids out to the neighborhood pond to race remote-controlled boats. There were some baby ducks at the pond as well, so the kids had two things to get excited about.





Once the storm hoopla was over things got back to normal and the kids were none the wiser. They both took nice long resters and I spent all day on the couch. Made myself some tomato soup for lunch and ate it in the family room. Then I finished reading my all-time favorite book that, for once, was actually not checked out at the library -- "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." If you're familiar with the book, which I know some of you are, don't laugh at me, I'm quite aware that it's children's literature. But I've loved it since the third grade when my teacher, Lynn Thompson, read it to us. I love the idea of it, the mystery of it, and the fact that sometimes what you find on the journey is more important than what you were looking for. To my credit, it WAS a Newbery Medal winner, and I'm not the only adult who enjoys it. The comment section at Amazon is full of other grown-ups who still love this book. www.amazon.com/Mixed-Up-Files-Mrs-Basil-Frankweiler/dp/0440431808 So to those of you teachers who sometimes feel like you don't make a difference, you never know what your students will remember 24 years after they leave the 3rd grade.

After my book I labeled some photos in an album from last year's vacation. I've come to terms with the fact that I will never ever get around to scrapbooking them, and that's okay. So I wrote on all the little tabs next to them in the album while I watched the "Jon & Kate Plus 8" marathon. tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html If you've never seen this show it's about a family who had fertility treatments when they couldn't have a baby. They had a set of twins and then wanted another baby and ended up with six. So this show follows them around and on bad days with the kids I just have to watch one episode of this show and it makes me realize maybe things could be worse. Though there have been days when all of their 8kids collectively are behaving better than the two of mine. Oh yeah, and I ate a Cow Tail without having to hide from the kids in the laundry room.

Jason and the kids got me very nice cards and our combined Mother's Day/Father's Day gift will be painting the office and putting up shelving. Jason was going to make steaks and baked potatoes for dinner but the rain kind of put a damper on that, so we fed the kids and then after they went to bed he went and got us a late dinner, my choice. I went round and round of course because I can't ever make decisions. I kind of wanted Bob Evans breakfast food but thought it's really too much money to pay for breakfast things I can make myself. I always want Chipotle and Jason would have gone to get it because he loves it, too, but I couldn't justify sending him on a 40 minute round-trip when gas is $4/gallon. Oh wait, sorry, it's only $3.95. Finally I decided on Donatos. I got a Big Don sub and a small cheese pizza, ate half of each and then had yummy leftovers.

Tonight my mom and step-dad took us to dinner at Max & Erma's which was tasty as usual (best tortilla soup EVER) and the kids were fairly well-behaved. I got them to pose for pictures there on various chairs in the lobby and before that we had a nice time at the playground outside of Jason's work while he was there attending a meeting. Xander put on a great show of singing and dancing on the outdoor stage, but sadly my new phone apparently doesn't E-mail high resolution videos.



Xander, being the ham that he is.



I was in a bad place to take a picture with the streaming sun, but the kids were side by side and strapped into a cart at Home Depot, so it was a rare opportunity to get them together without Jordis trying to run away.




Jordis didn't want to share the chair at Max & Erma's, so Xander sat on a stool and scouted the parking lot.



Thanks to everyone that contributed to my Happy Mother's Day. I think I got more E-mails, cards, phone calls, texts and MySpace posts than I get on my birthday, and I appreciate every last one of them.