The answer is blowing in the wind

A couple of weeks ago we met up with some friends and their kids at a Red Robin Restaurant. For those of you unfamiliar with that chain, it is not linen tablecloths and candlelight dining, but a kid friendly place with lots of energy and balloons. (I will never forget the time Sarah, Elijah and I went there for dinner and there was a couple at the next table sipping wine and trying to have an intimate date.....at a Red Robin!!!! I 'm guessing they were there that night because Chuckie Cheese was too crowded.) After our meal, Elijah got a green balloon that he held tightly in his hand until we went to visit someone. As we approached their house, he lost his grip on the string and it was bye-bye balloon. The trauma of watching his balloon disappear into the sky made our visit short, and not very sweet. Weeks later he still looks up at the sky (or inside a building) and asks, "where is the green balloon?" I mention this because of another experience with an airborne object this past weekend.

True confession time. Even Charlie Brown is a better kite flier than me. Getting a kite caught in a tree would be an accomplishment for me as it would mean at least I got it up in the air. This, however, is not a new talent.

Years ago a friend and I got a free kite from the local grocery store and excitedly rode our bikes to the local park to watch our new toy soar. (I told you it was years ago!) After carefully arranging the two balsa sticks into a "T", we attached the kite and added a wonderful tail, torn from a sheet from my bed. We then spent the better part of that day trying to get the damn thing to fly. After numerous crash dives, the balsa sticks broke and we attempted to tie them together using pieces of cloth torn from our tail. This of course only weighed down our kite more, but it did elicit sympathy from passing adults. Finally, as twilight came we gave up and dejectedly went home.

Undeterred, we actually went out and bought a "box" kite the next day, knowing it was the equipment, not the pilots, that was the problem. Alas, the result was the same as our box became a parallelogram after numerous bounces on the baseball diamond. (It never occurred to either of us that a little bit of wind might be of some aid, thus a career in meteorology was not in our future.)

I bring this up because this past weekend Elijah, inspired by a Pooh video featuring Piglet up in the air on a kite, found a Chinese kite we had in the closet and ran through the house throwing it up in air trying to make it fly. (and having no more success than I had over forty years ago). Because of Hurricane Ike, we were having strong gusts go through our area, so Elijah and I took our kite to the field by his school to see if we could be the reincarnation of the Wright Brothers (whose maiden flight took place many years ago this week).

I am proud to report we had the "right stuff". Of course kites these days are made so ANYONE can fly one, and we proved that. With a gust of wind in his face Elijah threw the kite up in the air and it soared. In fact, I had never gotten a kite that high in the air before, so Elijah and I were both delighted. As it disappeared up in the blue sky, Elijah asked if he could hold the string. He did a great job, up until the point he decided to see how high the kite went if it wasn't held back by someone. Luckily, on the way to the ozone, our kite found a tree so I was able to retrieve and save it for another windy day. As we were leaving Elijah looked up at the sky and said, "the green balloon is up there". I was ecstatic. Not only because he had comprehended the fate of his beloved green balloon and put it into context, but, because of a large pine tree, it was only his balloon and not our kite whose demise he was discussing.