When we were at Trader Joe’s on Tuesday, Liam was given a balloon of his choice (he chose white). Because of the incident from the previous balloon-gifting visit to TJ’s, I decided to put it in the trunk to ensure everyone’s safety.
When we got home, I found that Liam had emptied half of the contents of his water bottle onto his crotch and down into his carseat, so immediate de-pantsing was required when we got home. As such — I put him in the house and brought the groceries in as quickly as possible. As I was doing this, the balloon floated out of the trunk, but I didn’t have a free hand to grab it, so I left it to float in the garage.
When I left to go to the park on Wednesday, I noticed that somehow the balloon had lodged itself between the open garage door and the ceiling of the garage, with the string hanging down through one of the openings in the garage door. I assumed that it would end up getting popped by the mechanism of the garage door opening and didn’t think anything more about it until today.
As we were getting ready to leave, I opened the garage door. Liam always cranes his neck around to watch it open. I hear this from the backseat as I’m beginning to back out:
“Ooooh! White balloon fell down! White balloon! Oh, yay!”
Then I heard the unmistakable popping sound that could only be the demise of the balloon. I didn’t say anything about it and hoped that Liam wouldn’t remember what he’d seen when we got back. I wasn’t so lucky with this one.
As were pulling into the garage the following conversation began:
Liam: Oooh! White balloon! Where’s the white balloon! I want the white balloon, please!
Shannon:Â I’m sorry, kiddo — I think it popped when I was pulling out of the garage earlier.
Liam:Â Let’s go see balloon, please.
Shannon: [takes Liam over to the spot where the balloon is now one with the garage floor] Here it is, buddy. I’m sorry about that.
Liam: It’s broken. We can’t fix it. We can’t fix it. I’m so sad. I’m so sad.
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I want to go out and buy him a huge bundle of balloons that I know he won’t even care about because that was just so heartbreaking to hear. I’ll be a puddle on the floor when his feelings are hurt for real reasons. Ah, parenthood.