Balloon Fun

Yesterday morning, Julia had a dentist appointment to get sealant on her molars, so Madeleine and I got to sit beside the dentist chair and watch the procedure.  As is customary, both girls were rewarded by the hygienist for their great behavior, and they received their usual ginormous balloons that I have referenced in past blog posts:

Julia had a serious dilemma to work out after she was asked to choose her balloon color.  Pink has long been her favorite color, but lately, she's feeling some infidelity towards pink, for this particular reason: "maybe because it's been my favorite color for so long, I, like, maybe got kind of USED to it and TIRED of it, and I might kind of like, like, purple or blue BETTER than pink now." 

Who would have thought the mere choice of balloon color would cause Julia to freeze in a panic of indecision?

HYGIENIST: All right, let's get you a balloon!  What color would you like?
JULIA: (tortured silence)
HYGIENIST: We have pink, yellow, purple, green, white...
JULIA: (fretfully contemplative)
MADELEINE: PINK!  I want PINK! 
HYGIENIST: You want pink?  (blowing up the pink balloon)
MADELEINE: (hopping with such wild and delighted abandon that the other hygienists passing through the hallway had to dodge her every which way)
HYGIENIST: And how about you, Julia?
JULIA: (standing in silent angst)
ME: Do you want purple, Julia?
JULIA: Umm...ummm...ummm...
ME: Do you want me to pick?
JULIA: (timidly) Pink.

All that mental trauma just to finally choose the same color she always chooses.  She may like purple and blue better now, but she is CLEARLY not quite ready to let pink go.

Back at home, the girls played all sorts of games with their balloons before Julia went to school.  They did balloon fight, gentle balloon fight, "don't let the balloon touch the ground," and so on.  Once Julia was at kindergarten, Madeleine was without a balloon partner and tried playing gentle balloon fight by herself, but found it just lacked its lustre as a solo sport.

So she decided it was a good idea to sit on her balloon like it was a giant hop-ball.

Turns out, it wasn't a good idea.

After some teary cuddles on the couch, Madeleine was able to come to terms with her broken balloon, and went to sadly pick up the pieces.  Upon finding the first piece, however, a grand new idea sparked her imagination.

"Mom!  It looks like a SWIMMING HAT!" she declared in delight.   It didn't fit on her own gargantuan head, to her disappointment, but we searched for just the right head to don the balloon. 

And that's how Baby Lily came to have her very own swimming cap:

And, wouldn't you know it?  Now Julia is sitting on her own balloon to try and pop it so that SHE can have her own doll swim cap too.