Category: motherhood

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The Ups and Downs of Balloons

Balloons and I have a love/hate relationship.

At first, balloons are so colorful and perky. They float on the top of their ribbons like they don’t have a care in the world. I admit to succumbing to their charms; I have procured many a balloon for Lily and Emmy.

When Lily was about 2 and a half, she got a red balloon at the mall. It was summertime, and when we went to the parking lot, the wind blew the balloon against the hot metal of the car. POP! That was the end of that balloon. Lily cried and cried. My heart broke for her, so I pulled into a Party City and replaced the free balloon with a more expensive, Dora replacement balloon.

The day after you bring balloons home? They are limp, lying on the ground with a hangover. They are still the most wonderful toy EVER, though, according to a certain toddler.

I hate these sad balloons hanging around the house. I usually try to sneak the balloons off quietly. First, I snip off the ribbons. Lily decorated her dresser once with a discarded pink balloon ribbon, Fancy Nancy style. Then, when the girls are sleeping, I let the air out of the balloons and they “disappear.”

The other day, while Emmy was napping, I came across a balloon lying on the floor and put it out of its misery. Unfortunately, I forgot that it was Lily’s balloon, and she saw me. She started crying and crying. She remembered that time I had taken her to buy a replacement and demanded that we go buy another balloon. I said no. She cried even harder about her balloon which I had purposely popped.

I remembered that we had a package of water balloons, left over from summer. I brought out a yellow one and tried to blow it up for Lily. I couldn’t budge it just by blowing. So I filled it in the sink, let the water out, and then the balloon was much easier to blow up. I tied a ribbon around the knot, and even though this balloon didn’t fly up into the air, it brought Lily’s smile back.

I’m such a sucker for balloons.

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Experimentation

As a former teacher, I am all about experimenting to learn about the world around you. The first lesson plan of many units usually begin with “Explore.” For example, when I taught a science unit on balance I would give my students a fulcrum, a balance beam, two buckets and a bunch of stuff to put in the buckets. I facilitated their discovery process–“What happens when…” or “What if…” and so on.

As a mother, to my dismay, I discourage experimentation. I overheard Lily telling Emmy, “Let’s play Humpty Dumpty on the back of the couch!” The living room echoed with a resounding “NO!” as I ran in from the kitchen. As a mother, I am full of contradictions.

“Yes, you may dunk your Oreo into your milk.” “No, you cannot see if your broccoli tastes better dunked in your milk!”

As I experiment with giving Emmy a glass of milk instead of a sippy cup, she experiments with immersing her whole hand into the milk. She learns about displacement of liquid; I learn patience as I wipe up the spilled milk.

This weekend, Ed was using styrofoam to insulate the hatch to our attic. This small square of plywood measures only about three feet by three feet, and only large sheets of styrofoam were available at the hardware store. As Ed cut squares to glue onto the hatch, he had big pieces of leftover styrofoam which he gave to Lily and Emmy to play with. The teacher in me was pleased as they got out their play tools from Lily’s Handy Manny workshop and started to experiment with the styrofoam. This kept them occupied for quite a while. They were instructed to stay on the blue rug in the foyer.

I was cleaning up the kitchen (not facilitating the experiment as a good teacher should) and all was well until Ed took the now insulated hatch up to the attic entrance in our linen closet. He was busy refilling the closet, when some little voices in the foyer began getting louder and louder.

Read: Lack of supervision = chaos

The styrofoam had exploded into a white snowstorm on the blue rug and manic giggles were exploding from our four-year-old. Mommy me kicked in and yelled, “STOP!” The styrofoam experiment was over. I vacuumed the rug AND the girls. They had had a blast, and I had had enough.

Even though I haven’t been in the classroom for five years, it’s nice to know a small part of the teacher is still lurking somewhere inside of me. Personally, I think she’s way more fun than the mother side of me.

Lily seems to disagree, however. As we were snuggling at bedtime, she said, “If you weren’t my mommy, I’d have the wrong mommy.”