Operation: Balloon Rescue

Tonight we left the training facility to go out for a little while. We hit Target for diapers, some snacks, and some tioletries (exciting stuff, I know), but before that we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. DeLaynie has been doing better every day with her eating (and that's thanks to you, prayer warriors, and the Answerer, of course.), but we thought it would be good for her to eat some food she actually enjoys, and to get some time with just us. They had a lot of balloons around the place, and DeLaynie wanted one. We were feeling a bit push-over-like, so Edwin asked for one. They couldn't give us one of the mylar advertising balloons, but they went to the back and got her a latex one.

When we got back to the facility, I tied the balloon to my belt-loop in order to prevent balloon loss. By the time we got back to the quad, DeLaynie was tired of staring at the balloon floating above my head, and wanted it... desperately. So I untied it. Oops! The vaulted ceiling reaches a maximum height of 20 feet! This caused a slight problem.

DeLaynie could see it, but she could not grab hold of it. When asked how we should get it, DeLaynie said, "Streeeeetch!" (I wish I had a picture of her demonstrating that, but I was afraid that would have minimized her feelings, or maybe the camera just wasn't handy. Whichever!)

Edwin, with the help of a quad-mate, devised a plan: He would duct tape a mop to a broom, and attach more duct tape to the end.


He would then work to stick the balloon to the broom, and pull down the lost balloon. Problem solved!

Unfortunately, this left one unresolved issue. The duct tape would stick to the balloon very thoroughly. I tried to gently peel it off, but this ended in tragedy...

That would be my fault. I had thought about cutting the loop of duct tape, and then sticking the ends down. This would have left her balloon marred, but in tact. I made a poor decision. At least now she can't see it. We fixed the problem the same way we fix about half of life's problems with DeLaynie: with a bath. The other half require sand.