Oklahoma: Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plains

The other day, Emily and I decided to get out the Barbie kite that she got in her Easter basket. It was a perfectly windy day for kite flying ... or was it?

This particular Barbie kite was unlike anything I'd seen before. You inflate the kite using a small straw and then just tie on the string that's wound around a simple plastic handle ... no reel-type thing like kites had when I was a kid twenty years ago. *Gasp, I can't believe I just typed that!* Very simple, but an interesting concept.

So Emily carries it outside while I hold onto the string. You know, in case Emily accidentally lets go of the kite. We don't want it to blow away or anything.

We go out into a clear part of the yard and I let out a little of the string then tell Emily to throw the kite up into the air. She does this and "We're flying! We're flying!" The kite is up and twirling around. So I start unreeling a little more of the string to send the kite higher.

And higher it went ... the plastic handle slipped right out of my hands and the kite went up, up and away into the clear blue sky! D'oh! This was not supposed to happen!

I rush Emily back into the house to "get another kite" that I just happened to have. Anything to get her mind off what just happened. The new kite was a colorful Dora kite. Not as fancy as the inflatable Barbie kite, but it would have to do. So I quickly assembled that one and we took it back outside.

Again, I held the string and Emily let the kite go. Up, up into the sky, the Dora kite flew higher and higher. It did some dip dives and some fancy swooping moves. Emily even got to hold the string all by herself a couple times.

The wind was so strong. It was really making that Dora kite dance in the sky. Emily was watching the kite from her teeter totter. Suddenly, the kite takes a nose dive right into the top of a tree! Not again! This is not how kite flying is supposed to turn out.

We had to wait until Daddy got home to get the kite down from the tree. It was stuck and I mean stuck good! Mike used a broom to get it down, but it had a big hole in the side of it.

I think that will be the end of kite flying for us this year.