Let's Go Fly A Kite----

I can't see this picture and not smile!

    When you think about flying a kite, if you are like me, you in your stupid idiot mind's eye see it as something passive.  Standing holding a bit of string, almost meditatively.  It's the warm glow of childhood (a childhood that none of us really had).  It is everything good.

  
    This past March we took a family trip to Virginia Beach.  It was AWESOME!  We had such an amazing family vacation.  On one of our last days we visited one of the higher end beach shops.  The big thing for ocean beach shops other than t-shirts, and beach apparel, is kites.  You quite often see people along the beach with these amazing kites that you know cost more than my mortgage.  The funny thing is it's usually people who don't have children with these fancy kites (I think it's because those of us with children cannot afford these high end kites).  When we were in this shop in Virginia Beach I came across a sock monkey kite.  For those of you not in the know, I have a bit of an obsession with all things sock monkey.  I had to have it!  Christopher rolled his eyes when I began to beg like a child for this kite.  I began to convince him telling him how much the children would enjoy a kite of such beauty and good make.  He rolled his eyes and reminded me that I have never taken the kids out to fly their kites... sadly he had made a good point.  Not a good enough point to stop me from buying said awesome kite!  My happy kite made it's way home to Canada, where it has sat on my laundry room shelf ever since... until today that is.

    Today I decided to seize the day.  All too often I make these great plans in my head for activities that I will do with the kids while I lie in bed at night.  By the morning I have lost my ambition.  I have wasted more valuable time with my children, than I care to tally.  Today I decided to be fun.

    We headed over to the soccer pitch to fly said sock monkey kite, finally freed after it's long wait up on the shelf.  When we arrived, we saw an old man playing golf.  Hum, I don't think that's what they intended the field for in the off season.  The kids and I went out onto the field like we owned it.  The old fella wasn't too pleased, but I was o.k. with that.  I didn't care if he thought I was a jerk, what was important was that I was making memories with my babies.

      Traditionally my kids have always received kites from the Easter Bunny every Easter.  It is sad to say, but the Easter Bunny is a cheap son of a gun!  He always buys them those cheap plastic kites that have the current cool cartoon character on them.   You will see the skeletal remains of these kites in your local trees after Easter.  These are the kites that rip as you try to sail them.  If you are one in a thousand, and actually manage to get that cheap piece of garbage up into the sky, inevitably the plastic ring that attaches the cheap thread to the cheap stupid kite, tears off and the kite sails off, usually into a tree.  There is plenty of tears (often from me, as I debate running away from home to get away from the crying kids).  I think that is why I am always reluctant to fly kites with the kids, that and I'm super lazy.

    In my head the whole approach to kite flying seemed so easy.  One person runs while the other person runs behind them holding the kite, and then at the exact perfect moment when the wind catches that beautiful kite, that person lets go and your kite takes off into the blue sky, as you shade your eyes from the sun to see it's ascent into the clouds.  I thought that I had done a great job explaining this to the kids, but apparently I was wrong.  On their first attempt my little rocket scientists ran in opposite directions.  Calmly I told them to stop, and re-explained to them that they must run together, in the same direction.  Try number two saw one of the baby geniuses head directly for a soccer goal post, there is a whole wide open field, and that individual decides to run toward the goal post.  It is at this point that I begin to wonder if one of the few times that I had left Christopher to watch the babies he had systematically dropped them one by one on their heads.  Wouldn't I have notice bruising if he had dropped every single one of them on their heads?

    By this point I am loosing my cool.   Each of them is crying out "Can I do it, can I do it".  I may have shouted at them "NO!  None of you is doing this, watch me!"  I know I had added "you little idiots" in my head, but thankfully it didn't escape from my head.  I go out there, I'm going to show those little idiots how it's done.  Then a terrible thing happens, where a minute ago I was most pompous about what the correct way to fly a kite is, but when it came time for "Mommy to show them how", I realized that I had forgotten.  Oh God, I don't remember how to fly a kite.  Christopher didn't drop them all on their heads, apparently stupidity is inherited on the mother's side.  So I am standing there in the middle of the field, praying that no one is watching us, stalling for time, trying desperately to remember how to fly a kite.  I'm pretty sure that there was the smell of burnt rubber coming from my brain.  Maybe it's like riding a bike I told myself and them remembered that no good ever came from this accident prone ninny ever riding a bike.  Thankfully at that precise moment the wind took pity on me and grabbed the kite.

    I gave a sad looking run / waddle down the field pulling the kite here and there, willing it to go up into the air.  It did, it did go up into the air.  The kids let out a squeal of glee.  They looked at each other like their mother was some kind of a kite genius.  I stood there beaming, letting out string watching that adorable, high quality kite sail higher and higher.  Then it happened... when I was taking the protective plastic off of the giant roll of string, I knicked one of the strands of string.  I was certain at the time that it was no big deal... I was wrong.  The sock monkey sailed high up in the sky, suddenly made a run for it, and escape attempt if you will (I think it was punishing me for all that time on the shelf).  The spot on the string that I knicked, was actually a cut, and the kite sailed away.  The kids were all letting out hysterical shrieks, it was just like with the stupid, cheap, plastic kites all over again, only this one cost more than 20 of those stupid kites!  Someone was looking out for us, because the wind suddenly died, and the runaway monkey took a nose dive down to the ground, but gently glided as it actually hit the ground.

    After I had tied the string back together with what may have been 100 small knots, we were ready to go again.  The kids all took turns running excitedly with that kite.  Squeals of joy filled the soccer pitch.  I had forgotten how much exercise kite flying was.  There is a lot of running involved.  It is not the passive activity I had remembered.  The kids tore up and down the field the kite trailing behind them.

    Children have short attention spans, at least mine do.  Soon after the initial elation had subsided they were hot, hungry, thirsty and tired oh and hot and thirsty.  They wanted to go home.  I in their place was telling them "just one more time."  I ran/ waddled up and down that field harnessing the wind.  Eventually I gave in to the whining and packed up my beautiful sock monkey (that and I was pretty sure that my legs may actually fall off if I ran any more).

    As is the case every time, kite flying was not what I had envisioned in my semi-delusional mind.  It was not that passive just holding a kite.  It was excersise.  We had fun and exercised in the fresh air, on a beautiful day.  For a tiny second I was a hero, I will take that.  Our initial expense was my awesome sock monkey kite, but other than that it didn't cost a single dime.  I had set my inner sock monkey free.