The $12 Balloon

Yesterday afternoon I found Aubrey doing this . . . .

 . . .balancing on top of the banister, trying to get down a birthday balloon which has been hanging out at the top of our entryway ceiling for 7 weeks. She tried again and again and again, each time perfecting her retrieval plan. What finally worked: balancing on the banister while using Joseph's long pincer hand toy to grab the balloon string. She put sticky packing tape on either side of the pincers to increase the grabbability factor.  Hurray - it worked!  

Except, as she grabbed onto the balloon the string came loose and the balloon floated back up to the 30 foot ceiling, this time with no long string to grab!

Aubrey and I laughed and laughed, and then I told her that obviously that was the end of her balloon retrieval adventures. I mean, there was no way she could get the balloon down from the top of the super high ceiling.  No way in the world. She said, "How much will you pay me if I get it down?"  I laughed some more and told her that there is no way to get it down.  "Will you give me $5 if I get it down?"  I agreed, knowing my money was safe.  

She put her problem solving skills to work (motivated by monetary reward). After working for about 10 minutes she asked, "Will you give me $10 if I get it down?"  I agreed - there was no way to get the balloon. I remembered painting this part of the entryway years ago, and to get up to the very top where the balloon was hanging out I had to balance super high on a very tall ladder while reaching above my head with a long extension roller brush.

Another 10 minutes passed and her inventions were getting more and more creative. Now I was intrigued. Was she really going to solve this apparently unsolvable problem? Somehow she got me to up the promised payment to $12.

And then she tried this . . .

 
She stood on the overlook landing above and hooked a long series of tubes (from our Marbleworks game) to the end of the vacuum tube with packing tape. She reached out for the balloon about 20 feet away, hoping to suck it toward her.  Three times she had to stop to add more length to her vacuum invention.

And then it worked. She solved the balloon problem and earned $12 in the process.  Impressive, Aubrey!