Paper Airplanes

Paper airplanes. What picture do you get in your brain when you hear those words? Do they stir some memory from when you were a little girl or boy and you flew airplanes in the park? Do they make you frustrated because you could never quite get them to fold correctly?

When I hear the words "Paper Airplanes", I have a picture in my mind of a happy little boy throwing a plane high in the air and shouting out "weeeeeeeeee" as it sores through the air, then throwing his hands up above his head and laughing out loud as it crashes into the couch, then rushing across the room to pick it up and start all over again.

It all started one day when I was a little bored of drawing pictures of pigs and space rockets, so I started making the piece of paper into a paper airplane. He wasn't particularly pleased with this and started squirming on my knee, but once he knew I was making a plane and was reassured that he could fly it, he was all eagerness to have it finished. His small fists pressed here and there, trying to help me fold the plane faster and his head bobbed up and down in front of my face as he tried to see what I was doing.

After we had finished folding the plane and written his name on one wing, he wriggled off my lap and ran into the family room. He had so much fun with that bit of paper! He giggled and ran around the room, almost more pleased when it crashed then when it flew.

That was the first time. After that whenever he was bored, or just wanted me to do something for him it was, "Lizzy! Lizzy! Make me a paper airplane please!!" He would catch onto my hand and jump up and down, dragging me to the table so I could get started on his plane.

I can now make stunt planes and Split Nose Cone Darts and I often make planes out of the bits of paper I gather at church, but the way I will always remember paper airplanes is an excited little boy with shinning eyes who loves throwing them around the room and laughing with delight and begging me to make another one.