Kite flying without the FFF!

Anyone remember our last kite flying adventure? Oh boy. It's in the top 5 of the FFF (Forced Family Fun) adventures.

Long story short…it went something like this. Let's go fly a kite! So we go with wind gusts near 30-35 mph (because that's perfect kite flying weather, right?). It looked something like the Dust Bowl of 1930s. Eyes were pounded with dirt grit, tears ran down his face only to leave dirt stains. The weeks that followed included being deathly terrified of the wind to the point of not going outside…even recess. Wow, you know it's serious when they don't want to play at recess at school.

So I had it in my mind that there would be no kite flying in our family at least for 3 more years so as not to traumatize my child again. What's the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words?

We had a pretty yucky week of rain so swimming was crossed off the list of options. So I took them to our nearby school playground to get them nice and tired for the night.  They loved every minute of it and wore themselves out. They played on that playground for over an hour and were sweating just like stinky boys do.

 Then a group of brothers came up and were flying a kite as the boys watched from the playground. We were about to pack up and go home but the oldest brother asked, "Is it ok for your son to fly a kite with us?" I was thinking that this might be a bad idea but said, "Sure, why not?"

Bonus: Their kite was way cooler than my plastic Wal-mart one from last year and made for some great pics.



I just loved how there was this instant unspoken brotherhood between these two sets of brothers. I love that about children…they have no judgments, no preconceived notions.

He watched and listened intently to their instructions which included, "Just act like the dragon is chasing you." *Loved this.

And just like that…like he knew how to do it all along, he ran and ran and ran - without fear, without tears.

And I couldn't take pictures fast enough to capture his happiness.




It was one of those mom moments where you just want to bottle it up and keep it forever.

What more could I ask for? Happiness, laughter, growing up and conquering fears…



There was some fussing, but this time it wasn't from Nolan.

I will gladly replace this kite experience in my memory bank as our new "kite flying adventure".

FFF- Kite style

Just when I thought the Forced Family Fun was over...not so fast. We bought Nolan a kite about a month ago but the weather hasn't been very cooperative and we kept telling him that it needs to be windy in order to fly a kite. Well on Monday he went outside and realized that it was windy so we went. Little did we know how windy it was and that it was a HORRIBLE day to "blow kites" as Nolan says. When we went out to the field there was dust flying everywhere and Nolan completely had a meltdown about it. We tried to convince him it would be fun. Meanwhile, Campbell is on a blanket in the field and the blanket keeps blowing over his head and he starts crying because he's being strangled by the blanket. There were brief moments of no wind and in those few seconds Nolan seemed to have fun. This first photo pretty much sums up what he thought of the whole thing. Our kite flying lasted about 15 minutes before we packed up in the car again and he said, "I want to give my kite to someone else." Hopefully, he's not traumatized forever and will fly a kite someday.

This picture below is worth the click to enlarge to see sweet Campbell watching the kite