Flying Kites

Flying Kites

This title immediately makes me think of the last scene in the movie “Mary Poppins”. An idealistic family, whose distant father has now become a bastion of familial attentiveness, skipping arm and arm down a London street singing passionately about the simple pleasures of flying a kite. My own experiences with kites have not been the same.

I arrived home from work yesterday tired, but ready to tackle the challenges of the day. The house was in need of immediate attention, by that of course I mean that lunch was still on the table in all its glory, and someone other than the ants should start cleaning it! I was immediately greeted by three very enthusiastic offspring who had evidently been waiting with baited breath for my very arrival. All of whom were under the impression that I had come home for the express purpose of taking them to the park to fly kites!

“Kites, I said we don’t have any kites!” (I know this because I purposefully did NOT buy them kites at the grocery store the last time we were there – but I digress)Yes, Kites, and then I spied the kites, my mother-in-law had included in their Easter baskets…….Well, as a parent this is the moment of decision. Do I crush their eager faces and give in to the mundane demands of housekeeping and the social pressures of maintaining at least a “presentable” house, or do we through cleanliness to the wind and head off arm and arm down the street singing the praises of high and holy motherhood? Well the first I must admit. After trying diplomatically to come up with several excuses as to why Mommy didn’t think it was a good idea to go to the park today, and explaining multiple times how I didn’t think that flying them on our deck (beneath the pine tree) was a good idea, I finally succumbed to the fall back position: “why did your dad tell you I would do it anyway.” This not being entirely fair since Mark took off the minute I got home to go finish the maintenance at the apartment buildings. (He also left before I could see if he was smirking, so generous as I am I will give him the benefit of the doubt)

Well after 20 minutes of stalling and furious cleaning on my part, and 20 minutes of whining and crying on theirs we finally grabbed the keys and the kites and headed to the car. (okay 20 minutes of cleaning and whining and 15 minutes finding shoes, but you get the idea).

After settling everybody in, and buckling about 500 safety buckles, we are finally on the road, and I am feeling immensely proud of the parent I have become! We are being spontaneous, I am responding to the call of childhood. So, we reach the park whereupon I realize that I have three children and three kite packages, but not enough parts to construct three kites! So after some very interesting negotiating we decide how to divide two working kites between three very avid kite flyers.

Now the hard part. I had naively assumed that being an adult of average intelligence I would be able to assemble a child’s kite. But alas, this was not to be. We finally constructed something very much like a kite, but at this juncture Anarosa decided it was finished and ran into the wind. It never really flew, but she had fun and only got it caught in two separate trees. The next kite was put together much more easily, but unfortunately with little more success. It however was also fun to run around the empty field with. It was a very windy day and we were right off of the shore, so thankfully the kites were always “flying” just never more than about four feet off the ground. Jacob and Alana took turns with the other kite and Anarosa took turns instructing them in the art of kite flying (which consisted of “This way! This way! Not that way!) After the first thrill of flying the kites was over, we began to squabble over turns and why they weren’t flying and anything else we could manage to squabble over. The kites of course at this point are intertwined and Jacob wanders off to the playground to slide on the slide.

Since I’m about ready to wrap this whole kite experience up. I calmly give them a “five minute warning” at which point Alana realizes she has not yet swung on the swings. Seeing her, Jacob naturally wants a turn and while I am turning around to help Anarosa untangle the kites, Alana lets go of the plastic swing, which immediately hits Jacob in the face and gives him a bloody nose.

So the next time you’re watching Mary Poppins and the Banks family skipping merrily down the street, flying their beautiful kites in the London air, you may now picture me, the mom with the three dollar-store kites, two of which are tucked under my arm, one howling three-year-old with blood covering his face tucked under the other arm, dragging one very sulky five-year-old with one shoe and calling out to a sobbing seven year old who is still trying to “fly the kite to the car.” And you will have the part of domestic bliss that Mary Poppins forgot to mention.