go fly a kite

Ella has this kite that she has REALLY, REALLY wanted to fly. For a variety of reasons, it has never successfully taken flight.

Last week we joined Sandi on a three day trip to Portland (of which two days for her were spent in a windowless room learning all sorts of things over my head about critical care.) We were going to go to Massachusetts to a butterfly sanctuary but the 5 1/2 hour drive rightfully intimidated us and we decided instead on some outlet shopping in Freeport and hit the beach.

Now see I was very strategic in packing the kite because I knew that if this kite had a prayer for ever skimming on the breeze it would be at Sandi's hand. I regret that at times I think Ella believes I am incapable of certain things because I rely on Sandi to do them (such as "Maya has a bug bite on her eye and it's bleeding! What are we going to do? Mommy's not here!") but this kite had already had it's string snapped and had nearly taken a small child out at the knees when I was captaining it.

Here it is. And it's Barbie no less.

Ella, watching the surf (and sporting her new outfit from LLBean and a Carhart hat- can I get a big HUH? for that one?) confident her mechanically minded Mommy can get this thing to take flight.


Attempt #1...

and it's logical outcome.

Attempt #2.

Success!

Followed by irony.

Once the kite was in the air, Ella completely lost interest. I think Sandi was a tad bit mortified to be flying a BARBIE kit. (I love this picture with Maya marching across the frame.)

Once it was up, it was hard to let it down.

For Maya it was all about the surf.

Overall we had a really nice trip with beautiful weather, happy children and content, but tired moms. Our girls were so thrilled about the hotel they didn't sleep much. And neither did we as you can see by looking at Sandi's eyes.

Ella asked for pink sneakers so she could be a runner (my heart beat still) and we lucked out at the Nike outlet. She is absolutely in love with these and says now she can run fast from the boys as school when they chase her. Then in the next breath she said, "Well, I guess they can't really get me. They are only five-year-olds after all."

But when it was all said and done, we just plain 'ol wore them out.