Birthday Balloons

I am joining Pam in her weekly meme where we reflect on the ordinary things that happen with raising a family that make life extraordinary.

Here is a snippet from my life that I will surely miss one day...

Can you see what I found when I went to dress yesterday morning?
Now you can see what it is! Yes, if you guessed a shower filled with balloons, you were absolutely right.

The night before a birthday, the birthday person is sent off to do something alone while everyone else sneaks off to blow up a bunch of balloons. Of course everyone, except maybe the baby, knows what is going on by now. The good sports play along and Pa teases that he has to be in the very room where everyone is hiding.

On the morning of your birthday, bright and early, you are bounced with balloons. Whoever made my bed for me cleaned up by stuffing all the balloons covering my bedroom floor into the shower. I opted for the bath instead of having to pull them out and put them all back again.

I am going to miss the excitement when choosing special colors to honour the birthday person. I am going to miss the thrill everyone gets decorating the house and blowing up 50 balloons to hide in the closet until the next morning. I am going to miss standing outside the door and listening to the giggles of delight at the thought of getting one over on the celebrant. I am going to miss 8 people sneaking down the hall making the greatest noise you can imagine thinking that the birthday person can sleep through all that racket and actually be surprised. I am going to miss the various ways birthday people pretend to be surprised. I am going to miss seeing a tub or shower full of balloons because no one can bring themselves to pop them after the party.

To read how our birthday balloon tradition got started you could check out this post. If you would like to read more about birthday balloons check out this post, too.