Anchors Ahoy!

When an anchor becomes untethered it serves no purpose. Tragically Poppy learned that lesson very early in life, in fact just days after celebrating her 4th Birthday when what we thought was impossible became possible. To you and me it might seem but a minor occurrence, but to Poppy it was quite the trauma. Let me explain:

In our last Blog entry I mentioned the girl's (Willow & Poppy) dichotomous reactions to the balloons I brought home for Poppy's Birthday (read below). Feeling confident that we had overcome Poppy's fears and sadness about balloons flying away because they had a toy anchor tied to the end of the string, we let them meander all through the house for several days. The girls played with them, ran with them, boxed with them, you know..., things kids like to do with balloons. Through all of that wear and tear, they never burst or lost any of their helium lift. They were a great $6.00 purchase.

When I came home from church on Sunday the girls (Victoria, Poppy & Willow) had already been home for awhile, and Victoria was making us a nice brunch. It was beautiful outside, so we decided to let our Golden Retriever, Rosie, out in the back yard. Well, on her way out her legs got tangled in one of the balloon strings and she ended up dragging it outside. Poppy screamed, "My balloon!". Victoria immediately and calmly said, "Don't worry Sweetheart, it's not going anywhere. Daddy will get it." And you know what? The anchor did its trick. The balloon remained stationary, tether in tow, and hovered about six feet off the ground with the sky's limits right overhead as it was safely tied to the toy anchor, but for... Rosie's legs getting tangled in the string. I ran outdoors and tried to grab the string, but Rosie began to flail, pulling the balloon through the slip knot it was tied to. What happened next is very vivid in my mind, almost as if I can replay it in slow motion; I jumped as high as I could to grab hold of the rising balloon and actually had it in my fingertips, sort of like a wide receiver grasping an overthrown football. I was relieved when it was within the palms of my hands, but the mylar coating was slippery and it slid right through them. As soon as my feet landed on the ground, I jumped again, only this time higher, but the balloon was of course higher too, yet to no avail - it bobbled in my fingers and then floated, floated, floated away. Poppy crumbled and sobbed; tears were streaming down her face. I felt awful. Victoria quickly said what anyone would say at that moment, "Poppy, Daddy will get you another balloon, O. K.?" She chided and whimpered, "No, I don't want anymore balloons. I just don't want anymore balloons." The dreaded became dreadful, pathetically so.

Well, off to the next adventure and lesson in life. They happen about every five to ten minutes for the girls. There's rarely a dull moment.

Anchors Ahoy!

Tom