Where do they make balloons? Amalia has been singing this song for weeks.  I’d never heard of it until she learned it in class.  I actually wouldn’t mind not ever hearing again.  Except that Amalia’s little voice is so lovely and un-self conscious.  She sings herself into her own world, her own rhythm as she wanders from one activity to the next.  Sometimes dressing in ballet or gym clothes with tights and leg warmers to stretch and dance.  Other times she’s in the kitchen cutting up apples for some recipe she’s creating.

The warbling little voice tells me she’s happy, content.  The song doesn’t really matter.  Right now we hear lots of Christmas-type songs.  Fortunately, the balloon song isn’t on the Top 10 this week.  Izzy sings alot too.  She’s been learning songs for her school play this year, Twelfth Night.  At the girls’ school, the kids sing every day.  It’s one thing that even Izzy hasn’t gotten cynical about.

I used to know Izzy was happy when she’d skip around.  I just realized that she doesn’t do that anymore.  I remember watching her break into a skip a while ago and thinking that she wouldn’t be doing that much longer.  But now it seems that’s gone.  Almost 13 year old girls don’t skip much.  But thankfully, they still sing and Izzy will come up to me and sling her arm around my shoulders.  She even does that in front of her friends.  So I feel blessed and remember to take notice.  You have to do this with kids.  You have to memorize their physical movements, their smells, the shine on their hair before it changes.  I can’t remember much of Amalia’s first birthday party, but I can remember how she used to put her pudgy little hand on the back of my neck and I’d swoon.

And now I’ve got it recorded that I don’t like the balloon song, but at least I’ll remember it.