Think of Solutions!

The Wang Dang Dingers that I've written about still happen and actually they are happening a little bit more now that Amelia is close to arriving. BUT, Maddie does sometime choose to listen to reason at times. Today she came home with a heart balloon from school and within five minutes she had let it go in our entryway. Our entryway goes all the way up to the second floor so from her point of view it was a lost cause and the balloon was lost forever.


Enter: Wang Dang Dinger

WAIT!!!!

Me: "Now Maddie, I need you to think. Do you want the balloon down?"
Maddie: "Yes, but I can't reach it... I'm too small."
Me: "Now Maddie, think. Don't give up - let's use our mind. How can we get that balloon down?"
Maddie: "I don't know Mommy" she said with a hopeful look like I may have an idea.
Me: "Maddie, let's look for some broomsticks, rope, and tape."
Maddie: "Okay, Mommy. Can we get the balloon then?"
Me: "We can certainly try!"

Ms. Zhou was with us at the time and I'm pretty sure that she thought I was insane. It wasn't about getting the balloon down though; it was about trying to problem solving without resorting to crying as a first instinct. We found a mop. We found a long kite still in it's plastic wrap. We found a long white stick used to hold up one of her tents. We couldn't find rope, but we did find a long white cable TV cord. We found tape. We put all of this together and then Ms. Zhou decided to join the party because Maddie and I were laughing so hard! Ms. Zhou stood up on those stairs and reached way up high so that she was able to get the balloon with the tape I had put at the end of the long pole. Success!

So we laughed and Maddie has now decided that it's a good thing to let balloons go in the entryway....