Today was a lovely sunshiney October Saturday. We had a birthday party to attend, and then to Pixieland.
P melted down at the end due to generally wishing it were *her* birthday, which manifested in wanting S's balloon. S managed very graciously, and P wanted to say sorry after we walked about a block. :) Then she fell in love with her lavender balloon as we walked a few more blocks to the car.
And then -- it slipped away. What a real loss! She cried and cried, and sobbed, "Come back, balloon! Come back!" I cuddled her closely after that. All afternoon, she talked about ways to find it. Ladder? Parachute? Fly? Finally accepting it was gone (it really was like stages of grief). Somehow I didn't want to replace it right away. But we did have to go to Trader Joe's, so we did happen to get another balloon. She was happy with it. But I think we had a good lesson today.
