Helium Heights

Tonight we went to a surprise birthday party for a friend that will soon turn 30. I've known about it for a long time and am glad to have that secret out! Whew! It was for my friend's husband and was thrown for him by his two sons, the same age as mine. The invitation and theme was Dallas cowboys for their hero, their Daddy. I made the cake for the party, even though it really went against my beliefs to ice a jersey in those colors. (Go Chiefs!) Anyway, I was writing about heroes and Daddies along the side of the cake when Grant started asking me about it. He wants to read so badly these days that he has to know what everything says! I was already struggling with it all myself but was further deflated when I had to explain it to him. It was quite a night. I was dragging my feet. As much as I love my friends sometimes it's really hard to celebrate with others what they have but you've lost. Beyond the emotional struggle I was facing, we were running late, I forgot the candles, and I couldn't seem to find the location. If I hadn't had the cake we probably would have gone through a drive through and called it a night. Anyway, we eventually did get there. We survived and we even had some fun. I think it meant something to our friends that we were there and I'm glad we went.

Finally, here's the best part of the story. First off, after eating some cake, the boys were both blue from here to there and had the best blue smiles! Hopefully I can get one of those pics to post for you sometime. The funniest thing happened after we got home though. Both boys had been offered 2 balloons each to bring home. They were both quite excited but after I looped Isaac's around his arm, he was done and wanted nothing to do with them. We wound up leaving his there and just brought home Grant's two. Of course, after we got home, Isaac really wanted his own balloon. Thankfully Grant is generally a pretty good big brother and he was willing to share one of his.
Somehow I hadn't realized that Isaac had never really played with a helium balloon. The ribbon was really long on it and he could reach it even if the balloon floated all the way to the ceiling. He just didn't quite grasp the concept though. If he lost his grip on the balloon itself he would frantically grab the ribbon and throw himself down to the ground yelling "HELP ME!" He really wasn't happy unless he had the balloon itself in his hands. Generally he loves to bounce a regular balloon around and we try to keep them in the air. From time to time he would forget and attempt to bounce the helium balloon. It would just bounce all the way up and he would have a fit over it all over again. He couldn't quite grasp how to pull on the ribbon hand over hand until he had reached the balloon. I'm sure his two year old reasoning was even further impaired by the fact that this was all happening about and hour and a half after his regular bedtime. It was like in his mind the silly thing just kept falling up. The last straw for the poor little sleepy guy was when I was getting ready to tuck him into bed and he went over and gently placed his balloon in the toy bin for safe keeping. Of course the moment he let go, it floated straight up. He just started bawling and I asked if it would be ok for Mommy to keep the balloon in her room for the night. Surprisingly he agreed. For once I really won't be disappointed when a helium balloon ceases to float. I'm pretty sure Isaac won't either - but who knows! By tomorrow he may have a different point of view entirely. Whatever he decides, he's Isaac and he'll be just as determined that it should go his way!