A balloon a day, continued...

(Saturday) Today I learned how to make a balloon butterfly. I actually videotaped myself making the fourth one. It was painstaking to watch. First of all, it was so slow. It took me about four minutes. Then, I kept making all these twists to fix things up, even though I wasn't finished with it. And then, the antennae. Well, it reminded me of learning to play the guitar. I would have sore fingers at the end of the session because I pressed so hard on the strings, but eventually, the fingers built up calluses to protect themselves. I kept squeezing and squeezing those antennae, and finally, the bubble came up on the end of one. Then I had to do the other one. I ended up pushing the balloon up against my leg. (Not very artistic or pretty.) I did learn that sticking out my tongue to show great effort is not so good. Anyway, I'm waiting for the video to post either on Facebook or YouTube. Whichever one comes first gets on the blog tomorrow. In any case, here's a screen clip of the finished balloon.

Besides the butterfly, I took the boys to the playground. I meant to take them to the outdoor playground, but by the time I got there, it was closed. So we went to McDonald's playground. The boys ate their fries, and I started twisting. I started making a sword for the only other kid in the playground. Then I started making flowers for my kids, and then others started showing up. In the hour and 15 minutes that I was there, I made 4 swords, 3 flowers, one dog, two mice, and a butterfly. That's eleven balloons in an hour. And they were relatively simple ones. I popped two balloons. But at least I got to practice and give them out. My balloon corner in the house is getting pretty full.