Year: 2008

Today, I had to take our car in for repairs, but how to do that with Leilani? The only thing I could think of was to put Mommy’s bicycle with the bicycle seat in the back and go for a ride while they fixed A’ala Pua. After I struggled to get the bike in the car (it hung out the back and I had to tie the tailgate half-open), we actually got to the garage on time at 8am.

Fortunately, the new bike path starts just across the main highway from the garage, so we didn’t have to bike on any dangerous streets. This is the section in Kapaa, next to the Pono Kai condos. I recently learned this was the site of the pineapple cannery in Kapaa, and the bike path follows the old train tracks that delivered the pineapples from the fields around town to the cannery.

Taking the car to the garage early worked out well. It was cooler and the light was pretty. I took a few artistic shots as we biked along. We were heading to Kealia beach, 3 miles (5 km) north of Kapaa along the coats on the new bike path.

Here we are at the near end of Kealia. And below is the far end, where there is a shallow and sheltered area for Leilani to swim. Right now there is lots of wind and fairly big waves, but the sheltered area is behind a man-made rock jetty.

But Leilani didn’t want to swim. As fun as it is for adults to go somewhere new and find a place to swim, Leilani only wants to go swimming in the kiddie pool at Lydgate beach “near our house” as she says. I think that’s where she’s comfortable and knows she’s safe, but unfortunately the bike path doesn’t go there yet. So she just climbed on the trees and on the bike (it stood up by itself against the tree and rocks).

She wanted to pick this hibiscus near the garage, and she’d held onto it ever since. She likes flowers, although she doesn’t like to put hem in her hair. The bike helmet, which was the only child’s helmet at the store, has elephants playing baseball (?!?), but she loves it and calls them Dumbo, after her current-favorite movie.

But her favorite attraction of the day were the big machines working back in Kapaa. Below is a dredger (and a very quick photo-stitch) that is making the channel to the boat dock deeper. It is actually an excavator sitting on a barge. After digging in the river-bottom and loading up the barge, they would unload all the sand on the shore, and a front loader would put it in a dump-truck. Then the truck would drive 150 feet (50m) and dump it in big piles that you can see in the background. I don’t know what they plan on doing with the sand, hopefully replenish some of the eroding beaches.

Leilani wanted to watch for 20 minutes until they had unloaded the barge and went back out to dig underwater. It was also fun to watch them “navigate,” because thew would use the arm of the excavator to move the barge around and up the channel by pulling on the stream-bed. Then he would just go to work, plunging the bucket into the water and scooping sand out of the bottom and into the barge. I have to admit that I enjoyed watching it too.

After all this, it was 10:30 and very hot already. I know she loves to play in the water, so I suggested we go to Baby Beach, a little beach near the bike path that is shallow and has no waves at all. But she wanted Lydgate or nothing, and she said she was hungry, so we went to get an early lunch at Papaya’s nearby–and she got a free sticker to put on her bicycle seat. Leilani ran around the grass for a while, and then we biked to the garage not far away. The car was fixed so we loaded the bike again and drove to Lydgate where she swam and splashed happily.

Tonight, Leilani was doing a bit of coloring on the computer, with one of the many online coloring websites (Disney, Little People, and others). This time, we’d started with Cinderella.

For the first time that I noticed, she was concerned about what colors go where. She never seemed to color randomly, but she would choose one random color, and make the whole picture the same—and then repeat with a different color. We never pushed her to use the “correct” colors, just because it didn’t seem appropriate to make her worry about that.

But this time, without prompting, she asked me what colors to put where. After suggesting a few, and she more or less following (each color has several shades and she didn’t always get the right one), she asked me to do the coloring, then to color the other Disney pictures. She enjoys seeing the pictures of her favorite characters, colored recognizably, just as much as coloring them herself.

But when I found the Lady and the Tramp picture (Susi und Strolch), I tried several colors, but couldn’t get it anywhere near right. That’s when Leilani said “I’ll help you” and as she got off my lap and ran out of the kitchen, she said she would get the book. Not only did she realize the book would help me color the picture correctly, she knew where it was (in the bathroom). Here is the result, approximately.

On Saturday, Leilani and I went to a brunch-pool-party at Adam and Aditi’s new house. So we had an early lunch. After getting home, Leilani napped and we played together most of the afternoon, so we were getting hungry for dinner. Most of this week has been simple meals, but now there were some vegetables to eat up soon. So I put Leilani in front of the DVD player a bit early (usually she gets to watch after dinner and after getting ready for bed, and only if she’s been good most of the day) so I could do some cooking.

Whenever I want to use lots of veggies, I usually make my Chinese-inspired stir fry. But I still wanted it to go quick, so I sliced everything in the food processor (carrots, turnips, okra, turnip and chard stems, onion, eggplant, turnip and chard leaves). In fact, everything but the garlic that I put in the hand press, and I left out the ginger because I couldn’t do it in the processor. I even did my express method: process and start the longest cooking veggies first, and process the next ones while remembering to stir occasionally (there is a bit more charring this way, but it does add to the flavor, so it helps to use lots of oil).

Actually, there were so many veggies that I had to start it in two skillets, and then I just decided to do two separate dishes. So to the onions, eggplant, leaves and garlic, I added my char siu mix (char siu (Chinese BBQ sauce) from a jar, with water, soy sauce, and corn starch). To the carrots, turnips, okra, and stems, I added black bean sauce (from a jar), water, soy sauce, and a little experiment with plum wine that just happened to be in a glass next to the chopping board. And I even remembered to start the rice earlier, so it was all ready in less than 30 minutes.

Leilani loved it, even the slightly bitter turnips, and I have to admit it was really good. Nothing makes you feel better than a toddler gobbling up the veggies you spent time cooking, especially with all those Chinese spices.

Except maybe when she sees the leftovers in the fridge the next day and asks for that instead of the noodles and peas she originally wanted–and then eats it with just as much pleasure.

With Mommy away, I’ve been holding down the fort by myself with Leilani. Things have gone pretty well, especially with regards to getting Leilani to sleep. With Mommy gone, it’s the perfect time to move her into her own bed permanently.

A month ago, I decided the crib converted to a toddler bed was still a crib, so if we wanted Leilani to move out of our bed, we had to give her a big bed like her friends have. We found one for her on Craigslist, it’s cheap plywood but it works for now. Here’s a picture from today, with her napping while I write this:

On the Monday after the party, she napped at Joy’s (all the kids just go into the nap room and sleep together, no fussing!), so the big test was in the evening. She had slept the previous night without her pull-up diaper because she fell asleep in the car. Then I had put her in our bed without thinking about it. This night I wanted her to sleep in her own bed, and I had been emphasizing this point by saying she was a big girl now and had her own big bed.

So when I went to dress her in pull-up and pajamas on Monday, she said she didn’t want the pull-up anymore. I was more than happy to oblige, since she keeps them dry unless she plays too long in the morning before going to the bathroom. She didn’t say it, but it’s clear to her that big girls sleep in underwear and pajamas. So no pull-ups ever since.

For now I figure sleeping in her own bed is the big step, so I still lay down with her until she (or both of us) falls asleep. She still resists going to bed as much as she can, asking for more stories and songs, and tossing and turning before settling down. I read 2 books, then turned off the light and told her the story of Snow White, then sang 2 or 3 songs. Sometimes I think she doesn’t fall asleep so much as stop trying to keep herself awake and letting the tiredness take over.

I was half expecting her to come into my bed in the middle of the night, but we had already been training her to staying there all night. For the past weeks she fell asleep in our bed, and we’d carry her over. We rewarded her if she stayed and woke up in her own bed, a small coloring book or puzzle. So last Monday night July 14, she fell asleep AND woke up in her own bed for the first time that I remember. I gave her two gecko temporary tattoos that I’d picked up at the toy store, and I made sure to tell everyone how proud I was of her where she could hear.

And she’s done it every night since then. It is sometimes more or less of a struggle to get her into bed, but she eventually falls asleep and stays there until morning. The reward is now a few small pieces of chocolate, which she loves.

Tuesday was 5pm potluck, and since she slept in and I didn’t want her to nap late, we skipped the nap. Wednesday, she napped at Joy’s again, and so Thursday was my first time putting her down to nap alone. This proved to be one level harder than nighttime, maybe because there is less routine and predictability. I usually declare it’s nap time after lunch when she gets cranky–I can tell because anything that frustrates her makes her cry.

Unfortunately, nothing frustrates her more than going to sleep. So even after I’ve read her a book or two, she squirms in bed and eventually wants to get out. I hold her gently in bed and this provokes a mini-tantrum, because she tries to get out. This usually ends in a short time-out, and when she says she is better, she lays down with me again and sleeps this time. Yesterday, I discovered that playing her CD of children’s songs helps calm her down and get settled. By the way, it’s the LP “Puff the Magic Dragon” by the Richard Wolfe Children’s Chorus I had as a child and that friends of Grandma and Grandpa converted to CD for Leilani.

Hopefully, as she learns how to go to sleep, it will all become a habit and there won’t be any tantrums. Then we probably don’t need to lay down next to her each time.

We all got up early this morning and took Mommy to the airport. She’s taking a course on the Big Island until July 25th, and I think she was the most nervous about Leilani staying home with me. So these posts are just as much for Mommy as for everybody else.

Leilani wanted to watch her plane leave, so we went to the airport fence beyond the terminal to watch it take off. In the mean-time, we got to see several helicopters land and take off up close, Leilani definitely liked that. Then the plane taxied and rolled down the runway, and Leilani blew a lot of kisses to Mommy, all unprompted by me.

The only thing planned for the day was Makanakai’s 5th birthday party up in Hanalei. But first we had to go home and pack a beach bag, make some popcorn to share, and load the surf board on the car. I imagined Leilani napping on the beach under a friend’s watchful eye while I caught some waves, but that was wishful thinking. I never got a chance to use it, and anyways Makanakai’s dad Koa had brought his own boards for anyone to share (not that I had the chance either), but it looked good.

Then we had to make several stops to find a gift, and in the end we arrived an hour late at 11am. This being Kauai, Leilani was the first child to arrive. We put on sunscreen and Leilani spent a good half-hour splashing in the waves–I barely got my feet wet. Then Leilani imagined some sharks and got a little panicked and wanted to be taken back under the trees. I suppose there are too many stories of sharks in her books and movies.

By then, more kids had arrived and I remembered to take some photos. There were mostly older boys, one older girl and a younger one. Leilani did her typical behavior: playing by herself at first before warming up to them and then focusing on the boys, not the girls. Here she pretends to be interested in the present opening, but she was mostly hovering over the snacks:

The most anticipated game was the piñata for the kids to hit with a stick.

Leilani could swing the stick and sometimes hit the piñata, but not hard enough to make any candy fall out. But she was able to run and grab the candy when the others knocked some out. And it wasn’t just candy, she was very happy to get a little plastic dinosaur, before any of the boys got one, in particular.

The birthday boy got the most turns of course, but he was also the best at getting the goodies to fall out:

He also had the best technique for finishing the job (sorry Koa, that’s the best picture I have of you):

Meanwhile, all the photographers were fooling around taking pictures of each other, and I’m sure I don’t have the best one (sorry Anna and Rob, that’s the best picture I have of you):

All the kids were having fun playing in the boat, until I pointed the camera at them. Leilani hid at first, but then she gave me a nice smile to photograph:

Cake time. Leilani was not drooling for cake, just making a face for the camera. But that’s not why I chose this picture (no, really), rather it’s the only one that shows the outline of Puff, the magic dragon, who lived by the sea […] in a land called Hanalei:

I want some cake … …. … please:

… … … thank you:

Leilani tried to cut/break up the cake with her fork, until I told her she could eat with her hands. She didn’t eat much, since she usually doesn’t stuff herself (unless the 4 pieces of chocolate out of the piñata had anything to do with it). I didn’t mind finishing, as it was a really good chocolate/coconut/chocolate chip lava cake (half undercooked and mushy).

Oddly, Leilani ran around on the beach a lot after the cake and splashed in some shallow pools that the waves left on the sand. After that she napped for 30 minutes on my lap. When she woke up, we just played some more and hung out at the picnic table under the trees. None of us could think of a nicer place to go to than Hanalei bay, so we just stayed. It’s hard to capture in a photograph the beauty of this big blue bay, ringed by soft golden sand and filled with sailboats in the summer, so we just soaked it in. I did get a picture of one of my favorite mountains inland: Hihimanu, the stingray.

There were also some people playing 2-man beach volleyball right in front of us on the public sand courts. They were fairly good and fun to watch:

Finally, after walking to Koa and Anna’s house not far away, Leilani wanted to stay and read all of Makanakai’s books (that is, wanted me to read them to her). That’s when I knew it was time to pack up and leave the beach, after helping with some cleanup. I asked Leilani if she wanted to go home or go see the sunset. She chose the sunset, as I would’ve done, and so we went further past Hanalei looking for a good view. A few miles later, Leilani got bored and said she wanted to go home instead. The view from a little turn-out was so good, I had to over-ride her decision and stop to watch the sunset:

Even though she was initially grumpy about it…

…she soon admitted that it was very pretty and worth stopping.

Then she wanted out of the car and imitated me climbing on the guardrail, but I’d better stop with all the boring details…

Fortunately for me, she fell asleep in the car on the way home, after asking for Mommy only once and not getting upset about it. I was even more fortunate she didn’t wake up when I carried her upstairs to bed. I’m still dreading that she’ll wake up and get upset when she can’t find her Mommy to go back to sleep with, but we’ve been rewarding her when she sleeps all night in her bed (which involves going back to sleep by herself when she wakes up), and she has done it two nights in a row. So maybe I have nothing to worry about, except staying up too late to write long blog posts.

Good night.