Expect the balloons to pop kiddos!
Category: Life

I have a problem. Well, yes for those of you who know me you might say "Jeez..only ONE problem?  John must be having a good day".  So, I suppose a better way to phrase this is I have a newly crowned king of problems on John tropical island of worry.  My problem is that I cannot stop thinking about balloons.

Yes that is right.  Balloons are on my mind..in fact it seemed like it was the only mind.  Yes that is right I am talking about the rubber things that we blow up and attach to strings, which we then give to people to mark their birthday, retirement, parole, or surviving a buck shot from the Vice President. (I can make that easy joke...I am from Wyoming) I may be the only person in the known universe who actually hates balloons.  Even though I do not like using the word hate I think it is the only way I can give you an accurate assessment of my feelings toward those stupid floating spit wagons.  I only started feeling this way in the last few years, more specifically since I became a parent.  I have seen what Balloons can do to small children...they are as criminal as they are filled with tenor inducing helium.

Every time one of my little ones see a balloon they must have it.  They must have it now!  There is no discussion, or reasoning with my children when they see one.  Anything less then there small knuckles wrapped around a piece of ribbon that is tied to a balloon is not acceptable.  I could be offering them a swimming pool filled with chocolate ice cream and they would not sway their attention.  If the price for obtaining a balloon was to watch their dad get mauled by a hungry, violent, and grouchy Puma I know that their decision would render me at the bottom of the animals stomach.  So, like a sucker every time one of my kids request one of these things I immediately comply....much like they are Willy Wonka and I was their enslaved Oompa Loompa.  When will I learn that whenever I get my kids a balloon that heartbreak is sure to follow quickly.

You see with balloons there is no good end.  Either they pop, or they break free and fly up into the ozone, or they float in front of me while I am driving, which then causes me to swerve and swear like I had just guzzled a box of wine at lunch.  Just yesterday I feel for it again.  We went to the big aquarium in Denver yesterday and on the way out I paid for each of the kids to get their own balloon animal.  They loved these animals like I love the flowing locks of John Elway's head.  One of my guys got a Giraffe which we immediately named "Tom" and the other got a dog on a leash that was named "Dog on a leash".  For the first few minutes of the drive back to Cheyenne my wee ones were so happy with the world.  They were playing with, hugging, and loving their balloon animals. The universe was in harmony. Then it happened...

POP!

Tom went first.  He popped like my childhood dream to become the new white Gary Coleman.  When I turned back and saw my son's eyes I could tell that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to him.  What ensued could only be described as pure unfiltered grief.  He was heartbroken.  Tear flowed, wailing occurred, and through the weeps I heard the murmurs of "Why...why...Tom?"  My other son who maybe should have seen this as foreshadowing of his own balloon happytime doom did not even pay much attention to what had happened to Tom the Giraffe.  Soon enough the reaper also came calling for "Dog on a leash".

POP!

Dog on a leash was gone just as quickly.  Soon both children were crying in some sort of hell like stereo.  I felt terrible for them to be sure...but soon my sympathy for them was washed away by the tide of self centered jerkism. They had been screaming for a while when The cliche factory kicked in with their greatest hits:

"Now come on and stop crying it is only a balloon!"

"If this is the worst thing you have happened to you today then you lead a good life!"

"If you two don't quit crying I will never ever ever never buy you another balloon!"

and of course everyone favorite:

"What did you expect would happen?"

Except on that gem of parental wisdom I dished out my oldest son responded "I wanted Tom to live with us forever!"

Forever!?  What?!!  Doesn't he know that is impossible!?  Balloons pop!  And if they don't pop they shrivel into a choking hazard in about a day or two!  How can he expect that stupid balloon giraffe to live with us forever.  His expectations were way off!  I was really close to giving an Emmy winning speech on realistic expectations to have when it came to balloon animals... After a few miles of driving later my kids let their grief go (with the promise of a Happy Meal to be named later) and ceased their crying.  They moved on, but I did not.  I kept thinking about the word "expect". It is a word that has haunted me for twenty four hours like a batch of chicken wings I once ate a "Sizzler".

I started feeling guilty this morning about how I reacted when the balloons met their final reward.  The thing I felt bad about was how I had not treated their sorrow with the respect that it deserved.  Just because I was not devastated about the duel pop-pings that does not mean they should not have been.  Just because Tom and Dog on a leash were not important to me does not mean that that were not important to my little guys.  I upped the does of guilt when I started thinking about how I wanted to lecture my son on the idea of expectations.

The moment we add expectations into our world we most of the time begin to build the cell bars around us. For me expectations always come with a negative attached to it.  I expect to be tired when I get home from work, I expect that the dentist will drill me when I visit, I expect to always be chasing money.  Now, I will grant you that people can have positive expectations in life.  Some people live by the idea that they expect that their life will be filled with abundance and happiness.  That is not the way I usually operate though.  Usually when I have expectations they are usually bad things...which then surprise sup rise come true.  I expect the movie will stink, and so it does.  I expect to not like what is for dinner, and so I don't.  I expect that the people I interact with during the day will be grouchy, so they are.  I expect that I will have a hard time figuring out what my next vocation will be, it is.

It looks like yesterday I was trying to pass that horrible sense of life on down to my kids.  In my own sarcastic and idiotic way I was trying to encourage them to expect the worst in life.  You have a cute balloon animal? Don't get too attached to it, as it will pop some day! I can see that wonderful attitude of mine follow them around the rest of their lives. You want to have friends?  Don't get too excited, they will let you down someday! You want to act on Broadway?  Don't count on it, you will have to grow up someday. You see where I am going here?  I am caging them with my own expectations of how life should be.  I am putting a ceiling on their dreams...and that my friends takes a real champ to do to a seven year old.  Good for my son expecting that Tom would grow old with us!

Here is my #4521 pledge I have made since becoming a daddy to the o.  I promise not to become one of those parents who teaches their kids to only expect things that are bad.  I promise not to keep whatever positive expectations my kids have at a low "realistic" level.  I promise to help them dream to become whatever it is they want to be...without regard to what I expect them to be.  I promise to help them expect to live their lives tanning under the rays of joy and happiness.

Oh, and I promise to buy them balloons whenever they want.  Just like the....

Oompa Loompa Dompity Do!