Let's Go Fly A Kite!

    Every year since Gabe was 2 (15 years ago) the Easter Bunny has brought our children kites for Easter.  Kites are lots and lots of fun on .... television.  Oh on television they have a grand old time.  Heck, there was even a song written about "Let's Go Fly A Kite".  The reality looks a little different.

    Flying a kite means that you are prepared to work your tail off.  Work yourself into a sweat.  There is a fine art to kite flying, and I have yet to crack the code.  Maybe I need one of those wooden Davinci puzzle things like they had on the Davinci Code.  You need to calculate which direction the wind is blowing, know which way to run, oh way to complicated for me.

    Elly has been obsessed with flying her new Cinderella kite.  Every day, "It windy?" Most days it is not windy.  In theory the Easter Bunny brought them cool kites this year.  Instead of a cross bar which inevitably breaks or falls out, it inflates.  They provide a little straw for you to blow it up.  Yesterday was windy, and I gave in "Yes we can fly your kite."  I pushed the rigid straw into where I thought it was supposed to go, only to discover that I had put a hole in her kite in my attempts to push through the plastic.  Apparently the spot I shoved the straw through was meant to attach the string to.  The place you put the air in was at the bottom (which I would have known if I'd thought to read the instructions).
So finally I have the kite kind of blown up (the air kept leaking from the hole I had made).
    Christopher happened to be home for lunch and witnessed my kite attempts, as did all of the elderly ladies that live in the apartments behind our home (I'm sure that we provide them with lots of laughter with our insane antics).  So there I was, poised to fly this kite.  Elly was so excited that she was jumping up and down.  In my head I knew that I was the world's greatest mother.   I had just taken her to the Ivanhoe Cheese Factory, and now kite flying, WOW I'm great (it does not take much to over inflate my own self image it would seem). By the time we were ready to go there was no wind.  Then a wind came up, a small wind.  I ran with that little kite, running for my daughter's love.  The back ground sound was not "Chariots of Fire", but my husband's hysterical laughter.  I gave up.

    That night when Christopher got home from work he took the kids all out to fly their kites.  I now understand why he was in hysterical laughter at my attempts.  Of coarse there were many temper tantrums (only a few from the biggest kid).  There were legs tangled in strings.  Last but not least, there was not one single kite in the sky.  

    Maybe I am not ascribing this tradition the credit it deserves.  It's all in the way that you look at it.  I mean we have on a few occasions been airborne.  Those times usually end with a kite in a tree, or someone letting go of their kite, it usually ends in tears is what I am getting at.  The fun is in the anticipation.  In their heads they will sail that kite up near the sun and the clouds.  For me I am guaranteed a hysterical laugh.  Although it usually ends badly, there is some fun sprinkled in the middle.  So Mr. Easter Bunny... Bring it on again next year !!!!