The big Goodbye

Ah, the time had come. Thanks to some much needed encouragement from both Gracie's teacher and her dentist, we decided it was time. Time to say goodbye to the "souci"- otherwise known to most as the pacifier!

We had whittled her stash down to two and for several days had been telling her it was time to let them go and that Sunday was the big day. So, on Sunday we told her she could go to the store and choose any balloon she wanted to which we would attach the pacifiers and then go the park and have a ceremonial release of the "soucis" into the sky.

I, having experienced the trauma of leaving behind my beloved Donkey on the vast open plains of Wyoming at the age of four, was quite sure that watching her soucis grow smaller and smaller as they blew away into the sky would be quite traumatizing to her but thought this would be fun if we could give it enough hype!

So we bought a Mickey Mouse balloon and I let her decide what we would have for dinner, anything she wanted and she quite wisely chose Ice Cream Sundaes. So we bought all the stuff, caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream, whip cream, sprinkles, and nuts (some of which we had on hand thanks to Granny Suki) and went home to attach the pacifiers to the balloon.

Thinking it would be wise to test the weight of them now that they were tied to the balloon (Paul and I had visions of a huge build-up, Gracie in tears saying goodbye to the pacifiers and releasing the balloon only to have it drop like a brick two feet away) I did indeed test the balloon and it it did indeed drop like a lead weight.

So- off we go back t the store to buy more balloons. This timee let Gracie choose one to keep in honor of the ceremony and then chose 5 more latex balloons all tied with pretty colored ribbons, and now armed with our seven balloons we went off to the park.

Well, it was a very windy day. I managed to get the pacifiers tied to the balloons and handed them over to a very brave and courageous Gracie who was quite excited by this point to let go of the balloons. So she looked at the balloons and then said, "bye-bye soucis" and with great bravado tossed her balloons into the air.

Up, up, up they rose into the sky, but at a very slow pace and Gracie watched with mixed emotions - Paul and I were muttering under our breath hoping the balloons would catch in the wind and fly off in grand style. Which they did, but then they swerved to the left and then back to the right and slowly , very slowly , blew right into the power lines. No just the power lines, but the power pole and the transformer which as we stood there in great dismay, started to pop, then, crack, then spark, then snap and that was when Paul ran for the car and Gracie and I ran for the woods. We didn't stay to see if we were responsible for an entire block loosing their power as the balloons and pacifiers flamed and sizzled a slow death on the power pole.

Gracie I think was quite unaware of the anti-climatic let down Paul and I were feeling and once we showed her the playground she forgot all about the pacifiers and I was one who felt like crying, not her. We really tried to spend all our attention on Gracie for the rest of the day, just letting her have fun, she made a party ion the living room ,and performed a dance show for Paul and I, we had our Ice Cream Sundaes for dessert and it was only at bed time that she then asked for her soucis.

She asked for them quite a few times but Paul explained again why they were gone and she fell asleep without the , no problem. As of today she hasn't even mentioned them so nor am I!