Year: 2008

Leilani started to play computer games recently: I had been sick with the worst cold I have ever had since I am an adult, almost 3 weeks of totally stuffy nose, throat and headache, cough… worst of all no energy to move, it made me tired to walk to the neighbors house and back, or even up the stairs. Andy watched Leilani most the time, and when it was my turn, I had no energy to chase her around, and no voice to read to her, so there was a lot of DVD watching and computer (practice) games. Click here and watch some fireworks, make the goldfish swim left and right and leap out his bowl, scratch the kitty – all teaching her to move the mouse pointer.

But as of today, her new favorite game called Kwala’s Birthday involves double clicking, drag and drop, and precise positioning:

She is working very focused, and the expression on her face shows it too.

Hard work. Notice the left hand gripping the keyboard shelf…

The game starts out with an empty room that needs some birthday decorations:

Curtains, tablecloth and wall border as well as the center cake are put in the right place with just a click, but all the other items have to be taken off the shelf and draged to exactly the right location:

After it’s all finished Leilani clicks on the blue phone and watches how Boowa and Kwala are praising her decorations. She also learned quickly how to click the “Start Over” button afterwards.

She got more and more coordinated – and more color coordinated too – the longer she played. Funny thing about the hovering blue bottle: I watched her place the bottle like a balloon above the table and told her to put it on the table – I thought she wouldn’t know how to grab it again with the mouse and did it for her. Leilani gave me a blank look, grabed the bottle one more time, put it exactly in the same spot where it had been before I interfered, took a second one off the virtual shelf, and placed it where I had put it before. She looked at me again, and smiled…

With movies and books Leilani is a lot more scared now, and also anticipates scary situations (Andy adds: because I think she understands the stories better now). I need to fast forward through a lot of scenes in Nemo (sometimes a minute before anything scary starts), and hold her during others. When we read Peter Pan for the first time recently we only got to the page where Tinkerbell tells Captain Hook where the hideout is, and the picture shows a frightened and surprised Wendy and the mean looking Pirates… Leilani said it was too scary and was very happy when we switched to Winnie the Pooh. Her new favorites are the Dr Seuss books, especially the Cat in the Hat Comes Back, and Hop on Pop (should I be worried about that last one). Cinderella is still going strong, and Arielle the mermaid is coming up… It’s funny, from Christmas until just a week ago she wanted to hear Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer over and over again, and also listened to the corresponding songs ad nauseam (mine not hers) – and from one day to the other it’s over (and no, we have not taken the Christmas tree down yet :-). Her new song of choice is “Haeschen in der Grube” about a sick bunny, that’s sitting and sleeping, and then the doctor gives it medicine and it gets healthy again.

Her cough is not 100% gone, but a lot better, so we let her in the ocean again. Her nose is still runny, but it doesn’t seen to bother her. She seems to be done with one molar, still 3 to go though. Maybe that’s what’s making her nose runny?

I had wanted to install new software called iLife ’08 on my Mac for a while, which would update iMovie, the movie making software I used on most my home movies. Having worked with Computers for a long time, I knew not to expect to be able to finish my started movie projects with the new version of iMovie, so I spend most of the last week’s sick time finishing up old, unfinished projects. It was fun and resulted in 2 new DVDs. Leilani got to watch lots of her old movies too. Once I upgraded I also found out that I had been right – the intro proudly announced it “can import movies that were made with older versions of iMovie” but much later and quieter said “it will delete all transitions and all music and all added sound,” in other words all the work of making a movie. I was pretty happy that I had the right foresight. So far the new software works great, only the new photo organizing software (iPhoto) does not live up to my expectations (but is still a lot better than the old version).

Yesterday I felt better and we went to Lydgate for a while, and today we discussed where we wanted to go swimming. Hanalei was mentioned among many other places, and Leilani told us she wanted to see the dragon. Then she started singing “Puff the magic dragon, lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Hanalei…” (I find it incredible that she can memorize words and sentences that she probably doesn’t understand—they must just be sounds to her). I showed her photos of the Hanalei mountain ridge that looks like a dragon – she said she wanted to see a REAL dragon and was disappointed that there was none. Then we read the surf report and told her about the big waves on the north shore, so we all agreed that Poipu would be the place to go.

We snorkeled while Leilani napped, and later she got to play in the sand and climbed on rocks and threw lots of coral pebbles in tidal puddles. We aso had a picnic at the beach (but forgot the camera in the car). Leilani told us she wanted to go surfing(on a body-board we found at Lydgate one time), but we told her she needs smaller waves to practice. She is pretty brave playing in the water and doesn’t mind the waves, but still does not put her head under water, and can’t really swim (she did float with her dolphin tube today for about a minute but was very tense about it eventhough I held her firmly the whole time).

In other news, the guy who broke my video camera still has not paid me, even though I have a judgement against him. I am pretty upset, and need to take him to court again I think for garnishment.

On the way to the neighborhood playground near Grandma and Grandpa’s house:

At Zilker Park, there is a bigger playground, lots of rocks to climb, and a train to ride.

Near Grandma and Grandpa’s house, there is also some “open space,” a large park with lots of trails and a stream. One day, we hike there and Leilani walked by herself almost the whole way to the stream (about 1.5 miles or 2 km). There are no pictures of it, but we stopped to eat lots of wild pecan nuts. At the stream, Leilani loved to throw rocks in the water.

A bird’s nest:

Only for the birds to eat:

The Children’s Museum in Austin is a good way to spend an afternoon. We went on Friday after Christmas and it was full of kids and their parents.

Leilani really liked to pretend to drive the bus. After some suggestions from us, she would take money and give change.

One area that she really enjoyed was the paper crafts table. For the first time, she really got to use scissors by herself. Seeing Sonja use them for scrapbooking has made her want to try for a long time:

With Grandma Rosemary:

For some reason, the train station area had a decorative sign pointing to Vienna (Wien). I checked, and it’s not even a sister city:

Pushing buttons is what she likes the most and does the best:

Also in the train station area:

This being Austin, one of the displays was a model of a biotech clean-room production line. Leilani was too young to really understand even what to do, but she liked to imitate what the older kids were doing. Notice the flattened nose:

Text by Andy:

There were really cool Christmas decorations on 37th Street again. We went twice, but Leilani missed out both times. The first time she fell asleep in the car, and Andy took blurry pictures. The second time, we went after our dinner-date downtown.

Several houses always have some very political messages–although I think this one was left over from Halloween:

The large blue ball that spins might represent a dreidel. In front of it are a string of monkeys with banana lights:

I should point out that this is actually 37½ Street, just because I find that amusing:

Here is a quick overview of our stay in Austin with Andy’s family over the holidays. We have many more photos to publish for each activity.

The plane from Lihue to Phoenix was less than 25% full and everyone got a full row to lay down and sleep. Leilani got to visit the pilots while boarding and her immediate question was “Can I push buttons?”

After we arrived in Austin we took a short nap, ate and went to midnight mass. After some fussing, Leilani took another nap there…

I made Christmas a separate post. But this is my favorite picture:

I think it was Christmas day that we went for an evening walk to a playground:

On the way back we admired the Christmas lights. Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer were Leilani’s fixation this year. We learned the songs to sing to her, Grandma had the books that we had to read over and over, and she loved pointing them out in all the light displays. On this walk, we let her into somebody’s yard for the photo opportunity:

Jim has a garden, and still harvests arugula, lettuce, carrots, and broccoli:

We visited a few places around town, but in the end didn’t do too much driving–Leilani likes it better that way.

Leilani in the Big City, on our way to the Children’s Museum:

When Leilani saw the motorcycles in the window she immediately wanted to go in (and probably ride the Ducatis…).

At the children’s museum she got to chauffeur the big bus:

The Texas state capitol, seven feet (2 m) taller than the US capitol, as they like to point out. When I took this picture, I was really annoyed at the traffic light. But now that it is fixed it up, it’s a nice picture with an extra big red Christmas light—or maybe a symbolic message for the legislature.

We went to the zoo, my favorite was the petting zoo:

New Year’s dinner, with raclette—YUM!

We went for a few short walks in the neighborhood parks: