The red balloon

Today we made a trip to Capital City to collect more of the items we'd left at Grandma and Grandpa's. Scooter played for a bit, and we visited with Trillian's parents.

Before heading back to Springfield, we went by a "specialty retail grocery store" to pick up a few more food items. It's the sort of place that gives out balloons to children. It's been ages since we shopped there with Scooter, so this was the first time he even noticed the balloons. He spotted them immediately and told us he wanted one. We agreed that we'd see to getting one at check out.

As we wound our way through the aisles--didn't want to miss anything since we're still stocking up our pantry--he noticed that some balloons had escaped and were bobbing along the ceiling at the front of the store. Three of them, to be exact. And it concerned him to no end; he couldn't believe that nobody else was doing something about it. By the time we'd reached the end of the next aisle, he'd decided that he needed to rescue the red one.

At checkout, Trillian stayed with the groceries while I took Scooter up front. Grabbing him by the hips, I hoisted him up until he could just reach the ribbon. "Way to go," said a passing woman as Scooter proudly pulled the balloon close.

We took it back to show Trillian, and she tied it to his wrist. The whole way home, he talked about balloons and made up a number of imaginary scenarios involving them.

The red balloon is currently floating over the couch as I write this, and my little boy is asleep in his bed.