Da Keiki Blog

We spent last weekend at Salt Pond near Hanapepe. The weather was great, Andy wrote a long post about it on the Kauai Blog

After a refreshing nap in the car Leilani is being waggoned into the campground in style.

She loves being in the tent.

Attacked by a crazed vampire baby…

Just ran over the Hanapepe swinging bridge

Still on the bridge

We got her a little snow globe and joked that this was the first time it snowed at Salt Pond

A beautiful double rainbow right over the pond

Leilani is finally wearing her sunglasses (rather than just playing with them and taking them off all the time)

We walked along the beach and checked out all the tidepools. See Kauai Blog for more pictures of what we found on the walk!

Ice cream at Lapperts

Everyone can walk in Mommy’s shoes. I can walk in her fins…

Everyone can have an invisible friend. Leilani has an invisible pet monkey. His name is – of course – Herr Nielson, just like Pippi’s pet monkey. We need to be aware of it so we don’t inadvertently sit on it, and it jumps from person to person. Fortunately Leilani warns us and comments on where he is a lot. “He jumped on you. He jumped on Daddy now. He is doing monkey stuff”

Sometimes she also has an invisible Oma. I remember reading a book when I was in elementary school, Die Omama im Apfelbaum about a kid who had an imaginary Oma too, so that’s probably more common.

She is about to turn two, and that’s hard on the parents. Speaking of two, there is a conversation we had yesterday. S: “Leilani, how old are you?” L: “I am sixteen Dollars.” S: “Leilani, you have to answer I am two years old” L “I am two years old, I am two years old” S: “How old are you” L: “Um, I am old enough”. No practice got her to respond correctly to the question how old she was, not in English, not in German, but when I told her she could answer I am three years old, she did say that very well. She also says she is sixteen – years, months (or dollars) and 16-8.

Other recent conversations: “Leilani, what do you want in your oatmeal?” (still hoping for the answer to be spirulina) L: “I want jam… and syrup too, Daddy want some jam too?”

I just realized I had not written about the chickies at all: on my mom’s last day here we saw kids at Lydgate park carrying aroung the tiniest of chicks. I was kind of concerned, and followed them around. It was late and the chickens started to disapear into trees and other places, safe for the night. When the kids were finished playing with the chicks around sunset I looked for the hen – of course could not find it. We decided to take them home overnight and look for the hen the next morning.

For 2 hours we stalked every hen that had small chicks. One had exactly the same size and coloring, but from a tourist who had watched them since they had hatched we knew they were all accounted for. We still tried to sneak them in… the hen seemed to accept the light colored ones but pecked away the dark one. Racism in chickens. I was concerned about having one chicken. I mean – if there are 3 I thought it would be easy to feed them, and they’d keep each other company, wouldn’t get tame… but one – is lonesome and bonds to people. Not good.

We looked a little longer to find someone to adopt the brown chick, then went back to where the hen was that we thought had taken the other 2 in. 100 feet away the 2 tiny chicks were waddeling up to me. We put them back in the box and drove home. We didn’t name them, didn’t pet them, and kept Leilani from liking them too much. They grew fast, and Wednesday morning we set them free.

We went back to check on them Wednesday afternoon but couldn’t find them, except maybe one. Today we went looking for them again and found them right where we had released them. I was never so happy to see three small chickens. They were staying together and ran away from me when I tried to feed them, and it’s better that way. Andy says: assuming they are all hens, I named them Faith, Hope, and Charity because we raised them, set them free, and found them again.

Hello Everyone,

Our good friend and neighbor passed away last Friday. He was a very sweet man loved by many. Jackson, his dog, has been heartbroken ever since but responds to attention and love.

We are trying to send this to everyone we know in hopes of finding a good home for Jackson. Jackson is an older dog who loves to go on walks, has a wonderful temperament and is friendly to all.

If you or anyone you know might want a dog please let us know.

Thanks,
Melissa and Sandy
822-0410 or 482-1319

He loves children and is very gentle with them. I posted this on the Babyblog, because Jackson is Leilani’s best doggie friend.

Much later I add: Leilani has asked many questions about death, mostly because of Kiko, but also about “Uncle Joe” – and a few months after Joe’s death she exclaimed he was not dead but had moved to a new house – the neighbor building that was just being built and didn’t yet have walls or a roof. I said no, she insisted, eventually we moved on but the thought kind of haunted me. A few weeks later I realized the owner of that new house was pregnant…

Friends form California visited Kauai, Shay and Ayelet and their daughter Ella. It took the girls a while to warm up, but in the end Leilani really liked Ella. Today, when we picked her up from preschool she told the teacher “[I have to go] Ella’s waiting.”

Sitting on a bench at the botanical garden.

Try some spirulina popcorn Ella, it’s really good!

OK, I’ll eat it all myself, and use the rest as makeup.

Ayelet, Ella and Shay

Since we visited the botanical garden we also took a photo of the endemic Koki’o Ke’oke’o

Mommy’s shoes…