Taking to the skies...

Here's a simple fact: kites make me happy. Verra, verra happy.

Colorful. Free. Suspended mid-air. Defying gravity and that a@#hole wind just off the mountain range...

Officially, a kite is a "tethered aircraft." Now if that doesn't make you feel sorta dangerous and official, I don't know what will... And don't get me started on the Asian tradition of "kite fighting." Aerial MMA???? Yes, please!

They fascinate me. I daydream about owning a flock of them and setting them to the skies all at once. A big, bright menagerie of dragonflies, phoenixes, lumpy weird boxes, and long streaming tales. And a cupcake. It's true, I saw a cupcake kite once and I WANT ONE!

The sad truth, however, is that I am a lousy kite flier...right up there with Charlie Brown, and at least ol' Chuck had the tree to blame for his troubles. I have wrecked, tangled, and shredded beautiful blue birds and ferocious supervillains alike. I seem to spare no character and no level of complexity in my kite trashing. It's a gift, really. One that's incredibly hard to reconcile against the immense LOVE I have for the damn things. Flimsy little harbingers of heartbreak, they are.

Despite my inability to fly a good kite, I never let a spring or summer pass without buying the obligatory cheap kite from the local discount store and hauling my family outside for an afternoon of running in mad circles and craning our necks back in hopes of catching some good air.

I have folders upon folders on my desktop of Boy Wonder as a toddler and preschooler out in the great wide somewhere with a kite and a string. (I was a single mama at that point and somehow managed to make ends meet with $55 in the bank for two weeks. Kites were economical entertainment! They made up for the endless dinners of hotdogs and mac and cheese...)

Even Boo, who got his very own kite kit yesterday, carries it around and demands for it to be built...so excited is he for his own flying lessons.

With an engineering student in the house, along with a first grader with an engineer in training's thirst for building and creating, and a toddler who refuses to be left out, I'm determined to track down supplies and make our own kites this spring.

I started here, at popular mechanics. I started here, but I didn't last long. A box kite. Sounds great, right? Well, until said engineering student is available full time to help with the project, this one is out of my hands. At least until I can identify what all the materials on the list even are... But you should definitely try it if you're feeling froggy!

Other sites for kite building can be found here:

• Kite Building at E-how

• How to Build a Pyramid Kite

• Simple Kids Kite

Stay tuned. We'll invent the baddest of the bad kites around the nest and post a tutorial for all you like minded "tethered aviators" out there. To the skies!!!!

So what's your love affair with springtime? Kites? Bikes? Kites tied to bikes? Wheeeeee!