Year: 2006

On the last weekend in California, October 6-8 we went camping to celebrate Andy’s birthday. It was Leilani’s first backpacking trip (hiking+camping, as opposed to car camping), and her coldest camping. The resident ranger even took our photo, because it is so unusual for people to go camping with babies there—and because Leilani is so cute in her little mouse-ear hat.

We drove up highway 9 from Santa Cruz, through the beautiful redwood forests. We hiked in pretty late on Friday, the trail was 3 miles instead of 2, it was cold and misty and we were wondering if this was such a good idea. But we got to the deserted campsite in plenty of time to find the best spot, build the tent, and eat dinner. Then Leilani got very cranky and started crying a lot—we thought she was tired or afraid of the dark, unfamiliar surroundings so we walked and bounced her until she calmed down and fell asleep 9:30 pm or so.

Fortunately she slept most of the night pretty well, just from 3:00 to 4:30 she was awake, occasionally nursing, grabbing a nose or whacking Andy, or talking loudly to herself. The next day we found a big insect bite on her, so maybe that’s what set her off.

We all slept until 7:30, quickly had breakfast, and hiked out, just in time to meet our friends. Peter, Alan and Anant showed up very much on time, so we did a short walk to Castle Rock and had our picnic lunch while we were waiting for Ruwan and Eric (Xiangrong). After watching the climbers for a while, we climbed into some eroded formations and on some of the nearby rocks.

Around noon we loaded up with some more food (and “beverages”) and hiked back to the campsite. The weather was perfectly sunny this time, and the views spectacular.

We had a relaxing afternoon mostly sitting around at the campsite, playing with Leilani, and drinking beer. Peter and Alan came only for a day-hike and went back to their cars, then Lisa joined us in the late afternoon, and Ruwan showed up in the evening.

Leilani made a lot of noise at one point, she had not taken long naps and was cranky, and so the campers at the next campsite moved their tent. Later she was good again, and slept well all through the night—thank you, Leilani.

Leilani got up really late (2nd last of all the campers!) the next day, we had a warm breakfast, and slowly packed up. Jane showed up a few minutes before we were ready for the hike out. We took a different route than the day before and again we had great weather and views. Leilani even fell asleep in her carrier.

The adventure of the day was a rattlesnake right in the middle of the trail, but everyone made it out alive and unhurt. When we got back to Kauai, we found a black spider in the backpack (actually on Leilani’s suit) so maybe that’s what bit her.

Warning! This article is – against the spirit of the Baby Blog – very negative. But all true.

The houseswap in the Bay Area did not work out as planned. Instead of sharing the house with one very quiet person, who is hardly ever there, never leaves her room… we found 3 people, 2 sisters and a little boy, living there, obviously very inconvenienced by our stay. They had a few – heavily tatooed and shaven-head – friends on Sunday night. My immediate call to their dad changed things a little, but mostly shifted hostilities underground: Tablecloth down, tablecloth up and other un-babyproofing games…, 3 loads of laundry a day, each soaking for hours…, heater thermostat cover removed, and heater turned off 4-5 times the 2 mornings when I bathed the baby until the temperature was at least around 20C / 65F… (I gave up trying most other days.) In the end it was turned off at the funace and we had to call their dad again… We had to clean up after ourselves (and after the baby) all the times, no matter how inconvenient, otherwise we found our stuff in the playpen… we had their car only for 5 days instead of the whole stay… also there were lots of toy weapons of every kind and lots of books on guns…. I guess that their mother cleans up after them, I’m not much of a housewife and it just bugs me to have to take out the overflowing trash every day (OK Andy did that most the time), do everybody’s dishes… I am not sure if we’ll ever do a houseswap again, but if we will we will research much better, and certainly insist that nobody else is in the house, not even occcasionally. At least the parents seemed nice enough, and they left our house clean and as they found it.
[End of Rant]
When house swapping with a baby it is extremely important to have privacy, private space, and the ability to spread out, and that’s just not compatible with roommates.

We are all fine, have power and everything is OK. There were actually two earthquakes, the first at 7:11am the second weaker at 7:25am. The house shook gently, the wall hangings banged, but nothing fell or broke (screwing the furniture to the wall for Leilani might have helped). Leilani and the cats didn’t even get up, Andy went back to sleep and I turned on the TV (which we still have upstairs after the house swap).

CNN and Fox news have lots of news, all our local Oahu TV stations are off the air. They say it was a 6.3 magnitude quake off the NW coast of the Big Island–the Kohala coast where all the resorts are. There are reports of mud slides on the Big Island but no deaths.

We’re not really worried about earthquakes, we know they happen on the Big Island because of the volcanism, and like today’s they are not felt stronly here. I think they have tiny quakes on Kauai (probably due to the island settling), but I think we have nothing to worry about. Of course, a tsunami is always a threat, but we are uphill about 150′ (50 m) from the ocean (on purpose).

Our trip to California had 2 sides – it was wonderful to see old friends again, refeshing to hike and walk in moderate weather, and Leilani enjoyed the walkable neighborhood in Santa Cruz so close to the beach.

The other side was that the houseswap did not work out as planned. When house swapping with a baby it is extremely important to have privacy, private space, and the ability to spread out, and that’s just not compatible with roommates…. but that’s a different post. At least the people seemed nice enough, and they left our house clean and as they found it.

The rest was great. Leilani was really good on the flight to California, napped for a while, played, looked at books and magazines. At the house, she adored the little boy who lived there, and didn’t seem to mind that it was a one-sided affair :-) There were new toys and books for her to play with. One of the two sisters there was actually very nice (the one whose boyfriend does not have gang tatoos all over the visible parts of his body). The days we stayed in Santa Cruz we walked right out the door after breakfast and saw the Monarch butterflies arriving day by day at Natural Bridges State Park:

Hiking and playing at Natural Bridges State Park

Leilani learned to do grafitti on rock at the beach with charcoal, enjoyed the many dogs on the coastal path, and the many large birds to watch at the beaches. We got to see Lisa several times, not her dog Buddy.

I took it very easy the first few days, mostly walking around, to Wilder Ranch, the Lighthouse, Natural Bridges parks and helping Leilani adjust to the climate. We were very happy to keep her on Kauai time, so she stayed up later and we could go out for dinner.

Birds at Ano Nuevo

Birdwatcher at Ano Nuevo

Raghbir, Bhupinder, and their 8 month-old Amelia visited us on Thursday, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the adults:

Ray drove up from Ojai near LA on Friday, and we had several nice walks: Natural Bridges again, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, and in the evening at the Neary Lagoons.

Saturday we had a potluck picnick at the rosegarden in San Jose, and met many of our old friends there. I hope very much Anant or someone else took photos and will email them to me so I can post them.

We spend the rest of the weekend in San Francisco with Ruwan, meting Thelan and his new girlfriend Moira too. Monday I stayed in town to visit the Austrian Consulate in the financial district for Leilani’s Austrian citizenship. Leilani was very astounished abouth the high buildings and seemed fascinated in general.

Leilani rides a lion at Sutro Heights Park

Cypresses in San Francisco, near Seal Rock

Meeting Thelan in San Francisco

We got a very nice carrier for Leilani, and Andy took Tuesday off, and we went hiking in Ano Nuevo

Thursday we visited Andy at work, Leilani even had a guest badge

On the last weekend we went backpacking (hiking and camping) in Castle Rock State Park with our friends, and I’ll post the whole article as soon as I am done with the photos.

Sunday we went to Fry’s electronics store with Ruwan, had dinner with Connie and Michelle, and a late-night visit with Kit and Odem. Leilani went to bed past 11pm, and had to get up at 5:30 for the flight back home.

With Connie and Michelle:

Mirror, Mirror on the wall…

Odem, the cat

We are back from California! A lot of things changed while we were there, I’ll write a separate post about the rest, but the biggest change was food.

Leilani was a great eater when we first introduced solids, but recently her enthusiasm had faded. She never liked food that came out of the baby jars, but in the last 6 weeks or so she refused them most the time. She was not so big on fruit anymore either, she mainly wanted avocado, fresh veggies (not frozen), flax-oatmeal cereal, and soybeans.

Unfortunately when we went to California we were busy the evening before and the day of the flight, and at the end of the flight Leilani had eaten (or I should say not eaten…) from baby food glasses for the last 36 hours. We arrived at 10pm – and she was hungrier than we were. Of course most restaurants were closed, but we found a little Mexican place – I figured they’d have rice and avocado. They did – just the Mexican rice is spiced with garlic, onions, tomatoes… and salted. Leilani just loved it. The waiter, the cleaning lady and a couple eating at the table next to us all commented on Leilani’s appetite. I felt a little guilty, about the salt, but there was no easy way out.

Restaurant Crew at Sri (source: MetroActive.com, Stephen Laufer)

The next 2 meals were fresh steamed veggies, and rice cereal with flax, she ate so-so, but for dinner we went to a Sri Lankan restaurant – “Sri”. Leilani screamed in protest when I tried to feed her baby food, and I was so embarrassed… I let her taste the cauliflower from my curry, and she ate it all. She also ate 1/2 of Andy’s salmon and a lot of rice. The waitresses were really happy with her, and even the cook came out to play with her. She made a huge mess with the rice though.

Sri became our favorite restaurant. we went there 5 times, and Leilani tried all their veggies, fish, chickpeas and rice dishes. She loved every one of them. We let her eat Chinese food at the potluck and at a Dim Sum place in San Francisco, and American food (Salmon, rice and greasy but very tasty veggies) at Carrows. We had more Mexican food. All we tried was to get rice centered meals, it made the trip so much easier…

I once picked several apples from a tree, started to eat one and stashed the rest in the sling which I used to carry Leilani. She took one out and seriously started to eat it. She had gnawed on apples before, but usually given up after a few tiny bites, not on this one! See the result in this photo.

Now of course there is no going back. I steamed her some peas the other day – and she took one bite… I made pea sauce with them, spiced it with garlic, and she ate 1/2 of what I cooked (intended for all 3 of us!!!) Same with broccoli carrots and okra, which we ate with peanut sauce (she can not have peanuts yet) while she was sleeping. Maybe 4 bites. Andy fried it up in olive oil with soy sauce, and she ate it all. We introduced wheat, and she had pasta with pesto and vegetables, home baked bread (whole wheat and spelt with flax and basil) with guacamole.

Next week I’ll introduce corn, and then peanuts I guess, I’ll just space the known allergens a little, but I am so happy that she eats adult food. We’ll prepare food a little more consciously, especially go easy on the salt, but I’m not even feeling guilty anymore, just relieved. I would not want Dr Ancharski to read the post though… I guess I should say only a little guilty…

And an anthropological observation as a sideline: People living on Kauai usually ask “How long do you plan to nurse?”. Europeans ask “Are you still nursing?” (Often surprised) and in San Jose I got several “How long did you nurse” and “Did you nurse her?”