“Bah-moo,” our son says with happiness and delight. “Bah-moo,” he says again and points excitedly towards the sky. “Ugh!” He’s unhappy now. He thinks about hitting me to get my attention. “What,” I ask? “Bah-moo,” he points. Ah. “Balloon.” Too many syllables in that one word for our son’s mouth at the moment. He eagerly attempts to get the words out though. It started with an infatuation with those floating balls in other books. It then moved to a desire to see them up close in the various supermarkets that had them floating around the aisles. Eventually I’d be waiting in line alone to purchase our produce while Mom dutifully took our son to look at the balloons. He loves those things.
Since my wife and I had to replace a computer that had died (and truly seen better days before its ultimate demise) we had vowed to not spend money on one another during the holiday of cards and candy. We did, however, decide that we wanted to spend some small amount of money on our son. He is, after all, the walking and talking physical proof of our love. What better way to celebrate our love than by making our son happy and sharing in his joy. We decided to purchase balloons. We obtained a “bouquet” of balloons (shaped sort of like roses) for our son to play with. It would be impossible to describe his joy. He happily carried them around the house and marvelled at their seemingly physics defying properties as the fell upward. Since they were not of the latex sort (but rather mylar) they are bound to last for a long long time. I can’t be sure that we’ll ever purchases balloons for our son on future valentine’s days, but I do know that we won’t ever forget the joy in his eyes. He truly appreciated our gift and we truly appreciate him.