The red balloon

My kids fascinate me..
We went to the local Spur tonight. Michelle, my wife, is away at the Kruger National Park and I'm looking after the kids. Seeing as I really suck at cooking I took them out. In the course of the evening my 4 year old, Isabelle, was introduced to a red ballon. In no time at all she formed this realtionship with it and it bacame part of who she was - well that's how it seemd - especially when it blew away in the parking lot an hour later...

Now I've done the heroic running after the balloon thing before, but the wind was just too wild tonight and I just knew i'd end up looking like an idiot chasing after the air - because that's really what a balloon is.
"It's a just piece of rubber stretched around air", I told her - but she didn't buy that. So I tried the whole " now your balloon is free to fly - blah blah". She let me know in no uncertain terms that this really wasn't going to do it for her. Ok, how about something a little less logical - "your balloon is free and you're four". 3 and 4 for those of you who don't get it - although she did. She sort of laughed so I thought I was on to something. "And Jess has one too - so we have one two free four". ..Damn - when will I learn to quite while I'm ahead? I've just reminded her that Jess has one and she doesn't and that's all it takes to turn on the taps again.
So we're stuck with a crying kid until we get home where Jess (the little angel) says Belle can have her balloon and at last - the crying stops.

So - what's the moral of the story? Well there really isn't one - but I'm so glad that we grow out of these things, and that grown ups don't make such a fuss about running after a sort-of-round ball-like object filled with air...