Fall.  Is there a better time to be a parent?  With all the festivals?  In my area alone, there’s an apple festival, garlic festival and cheese festival.  Let’s not even get started with the overall fall festivals, pumpkin festivals, and our latest excursion, the kite festival.

The kite festival came at a good time because our very kind neighbors gave my kids each a kite.  And the jerk of a mother that I am, I haven’t let them use them.  Any chance they asked, it was never a good time.  Finally I saw in my facebook feed a kite festival near us, so I held them off with the promises of the upcoming event.

The homeschooling mother that I am, I of course needed to turn it into a learning experience.  Prior to the event, we watched videos explaining all the scientific terms related to what gets a kite into the air.  We discussed lift and force and thrust and gravity.  My oldest even drew a bit of a diagram on what to expect.

Finally, The Kite Festival!

I’m thinking ahead and assemble our kites prior to leaving the house, so we only have to grab them out of the trunk and go.  My six and four year old each grab their kite and we head out to the field where everyone else is flying their kites.  Let’s think about this – a bunch of families, running through a not very largish field, trying to fly kites.  Wishing I had brought helmets and safety goggles, we stake out our place and I attempt to get my six year old’s kite into the air.  The damn thing is constantly turning.  It won’t lift, it won’t thrust, gravity is kicking our ass! Meanwhile, my four year old’s kite is nearly lifting out of her hands.

Around me are parents getting their kids’ kites in the air while their children beg to be able to fly their own kite.  That sinks in to me – I could see the picture we made – me telling my six year old son to hold on, I’m doing this for you, kind of scenario while he sits there and pouts.  I hand him his non-functioning kite to give it a try while I get my four year old daughter’s kite in the air.  Her kite takes 17 seconds to lift off.  It’s amazingly high up in the air while my son still struggles with his.  Of course, he’s losing his mind over it.

Now I’m left with the awful decision I didn’t think of as I left my house, out numbered, with two instruments of death (or at least intense eye-gouging).  I have to trust my daughter to hold on to her kite, soaring high in the sky.  I need her to actually watch it and make sure it doesn’t plummet into someone else’s head.  Then, I need to keep my son focused enough to try to watch his kite while I try again to get it in the sky so it doesn’t take out his face.

Very typical Mom Optimism.  Go fly a kite with your kids!  It’ll be magical!  I’ll. Never. Learn.

I’m pretty sure the town has a photograph of a crazy mom, yelling at one child to look at her kite while trying to fly her other child’s kite.  You can probably see the movement lines as I’m bouncing between children trying to prevent someone’s death.

Finally, I call it with my son’s kite.  It’s not happening.  I convince my daughter who doesn’t want to look at her kite, but stand their proudly posing with the kite she isn’t watching, to let her brother have a turn.  After the kite plummets to the ground, narrowly missing a sweet girl and her grandfather, I convince the kids to sit on the ground with me, eat an apple and take in the success of the other people around us.

Do you try to take your children to things that are destined to fail?  Have you successfully flown a kite with your kids?  Drop us a comment below or continue the conversation on the Bleeping Motherhood facebook page.