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.