Up, Up, and Away

(I've gotten a little behind on blogging, so forgive me as we backtrack a bit to Valentine's Day.)

On Valentine's Day Avery and I were at the grocery store when she laid eyes on the "pretty balloons!" at the check out. We don't usually indulge in impulse buys at the store, but it was Valentine's Day after all. I couldn't resist the opportunity to show my girl a little love, so she picked a balloon and proudly held it the whole way home. Then she held it all the way through dinner. And diaper time. And as she played. She didn't let go of the balloon for a solid two hours. I finally convinced her that it was time for bed and that the balloon would be waiting for her in the morning. She reluctantly let go of the string and we started to head for the stairs. Within 10 seconds, Nellie the cat ran over to the balloon, took one chomp on the ribbon, and the balloon became detached from the weight, resulting in this:

There floats Avery's balloon at the top of our two story vaulted ceiling. Cue the tears. Avery melted down and screamed "My balloon! Too high! My balloon!" until I finally got her upstairs in her room for bed. She continued to whimper and cry all through the night night routine and for a good 20 minutes after she laid down in her crib. It was so sad! Erich got home from work a little while later, after Avery had finally fallen asleep and he wasted no time getting to work on solving the problem. He had to save the day for his littlest valentine!

A ladder, a long pole, and a piece of tape helped Erich get the balloon safely back to ground level. I couldn't bare the thought of Avery's last sight before bed being her special valentine's day balloon out of reach, so we did what any responsible parents would do... we woke her up.

In a foggy groggy sleepy haze, she came downstairs and lit up when she saw Daddy with balloon in hand. Avery's answer to every problem is, "Daddy will fix it!" and she's usually right. Daddy takes care of his girl. He's her hero. He's mine too.