Second Child

The person delivering your next singing balloon bouquet may be a round lady in a tuxedo.Mary Lee Keppler, alias Balloon and Tune, delivers airborne plastic posies with a selection of enthusiastic songs. Working from her Hampstead home, she has been on the road throughout the North Carroll area for about four months.Few know, however, that the queen of balloons is pregnant.She says she has "the extra large tux" that can expand as needed and that she intends to keep singing as long as the baby -- her second child -- will allow.

We spout it like a mantra: ''the best interests of the child.'' But if we mean it, why does it so seldom show?The question arises anew in a particularly painful context. Michigan's highest court is the latest venue for an adoption case that seems tailor-made to illustrate the muddle we make of children's interests.In Michigan, a 2-year-old girl adopted at birth faces the real possibility of losing the only parents she has known and being handed over to the strangers who are her biological parents.

A county family has lost a second child to an auto accident.Jared Golden, 15, died Saturday night when he lost control of his bicycleand slid under a car driven by Donald E. Kinney, 17, of Aurora, W.Va., state police said.Last year, Golden's family won a $13 million judgment in the death of John Golden, 14.John Golden was killed by a drunken driver Nov. 7, 1987, in a head-on collision.The boys' father, John Golden, said Saturday the family doesn't expect to see much from the lawsuit because the driver had no insurance.

Jack Warden joins John Ritter in Imagine Films-Universal's "Problem Child II," scheduled to get under way next month.Alyssa Milano of "Who's the Boss," Jonathan Silverman and George Newbern star in Creative Edge Films' collegiate comedy "Co-Ed," written and directed by Jimmy Zeilinger. The Martin Wiley-Jeffrey Neuman produced film is shooting in Los Angeles.Martin Lawrence from New Line Cinema's "House Party" and Darryl Sivad head the cast in New Line's "Talking Dirty After Dark," written and directed by Topper Carew.