yaylalar: The kite festival

see kite in background . . . not ours

Every year our school holds a kite festival. I hadn't gone before, and planned to go with the kids and our new kites this year at 12:00 when the festival was to begin. I thought I'd be too early, but when we pulled up at 12:20 the lot was already packed into the road. Bouncy yards were set up, a water game, trampolines. Food stands. And kites flying high everywhere. I had the three kids, two kites, a cooler with a picnic lunch and Gokhan. We found a shaded tree to set up under - and I had intended on moving later closer to the playground or somewhere - but the place got so crowded so fast I ended up not moving anywhere.

The grounds are huge - but Ankara's propensity for a weekend picnic is bigger so it had a concert - camp-like feel but in the protective community of our private school. I immediately had to pull out the kites for the kids to try... they couldn't wait ... and it was a disaster.

I started running with Tomris's kite to get it up for her, and she immediately started crying because I was running away from her with the kite. So I hardly even tried - I handed it over to her to run with. I tried to help Teoman - his kite was a big bigger with two handles making it a "trick" kite, and even harder to get in the air because it kept diving and swooping - a cool trick once up high, but made for a poor take-off. We never got his up either. It was too much to manage even with Gokhan's help.

Toddlers and kites don't mix.

Strings do.

We took a break to picnic and I tried again leaving Gokhan with the baby - instructing him to call me if she fussed. He called me in five minutes. It took me the same amount of time to make my way back to him (Tomris was obsessing and crying over something on her finger). From a distance, I could see a woman had stepped in and taken Tuana from Gokhan and she was happy. I could see the woman's huge grin from far off - and while I wasn't sure who it was, I was sure that was an American smile. (How is it so tell-tale?)

Seren is from Canada and half Turkish, her husband is full Turkish but studied in America. She had coincidently set up her picnic blanket next to ours and saw the blue-eyed baby, then spotted the American style stroller and asked - is this Rachel's baby?

We spent the whole afternoon at school - it was such a beautiful day that in spite of the little voice inside me that warned I should get these kids home before its too late, we stayed until five anyhow. Seren had tried getting the kite up once again for our kids and did - Tomris was grinning ear to ear at the chance to hold it up - but the wind was fickle so when Teoman had his turn, the wind seemed to die permanently. Teoman was already mad he had to wait his turn (sooooo overtired), and was even more mad when the kite didn't work:

"Tomris! You took all the wind!"

The evening only went downhill from there.