Da Keiki Blog

Andy and I are both slightly socially handicapped. We are not full-blown geeks, but we do have some troubles getting conversations started, especially with strangers, and it takes quite a while until people are not strangers anymore. I am the more extroverted person, so people notice it less, maybe also because I often try really hard to be open and make contact. Older relatives have told me I was very shy as a kid.

Leilani is very different from both of us: when she sees kids – newborn to young teenager – she coos, flirts, smiles, and if nothing else helps sticks out her tounge… She really wants to meet children, and enjoys their company, even at the height of “stranger anxiety”. She only allows 4 or 5 familiar adults to hold her right now, but she will happily allow a 6 year old she has never seen her before to pick her up.

Yersterday in Hilo at the airport she was really bored. I didn’t want her to crawl too much on the filthy floor, so I held her by both hands and let her walk – she went straight for a family with 3 little boys, 5 to 8 years. I looked up and saw them all watching us and smiling 3 boys**, parents, grandparents… – I am still not used to all this friendlieness, Leilani has smiling karma, I think my entire life before she was born I saw less smiles than in the past 9 months… anyway. Leilani had started the smiling and they were all looking at us and smiling back. I mean…. I could not just turn her around and walk away… my heart pounded, from some misguided stagefreight…. I had to talk to an entire family of complete stangers… I did, awkwardly but I did. They were incredibly nice. Once I said hello and introduced Leilani, the boys took turns playing grimacing, singing, crawling on the floor in a make-believe catch game, Leilani was laughing loudly and enjoying all the games and attention so much.

I think a lot of the social behavior is learned, I really hope she keeps her friendly open ways. Often I admire some of our completely outgoing, spontaneous, smalltalking friends, it seems to open so many doors…

**On girls I would not have been surprised, but it turns out the mother runs a daycare in their home, and they constantly have babies there, and the boys just love them.

OK the good news: I snorkeled in the clear waters of Honaunau, pristine corals, colorful fish, turtles, incredibly beautiful… then a nice whole family swim – Leilani in a floatie far out into the at Ho’okena bay, I got to see an entire movie (Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman), we got to see the lava – from a great distance – and we did one (!!!) very nice hike, and another short walk on a petty nature trail. Totals about 7 hours. The trip did not make the list of my 3 worst vacations. Oh, and more good news. We took some nice pictures (but not of a smiling baby). Leilani did not poop her diaper on the trip. And we are back now…

The bad news: We drove almost 600 miles in 6 days, and stayed in 4 different places. Most of my time in the car, it seems was spend calming the upset baby (Leilani hates the carseat, and driving in general, she likes flying though) or being upset because Leilani was screaming, or fearing the cops because she was not in the carseat but on my lap. Leilani’s being upset did not just vanish getting out of the car… she missed her laying down and nursing naps, got overly tired and screamed at the top of her lungs at bedtime, stressed (loudly) about the hot Kona sun (94F – 34C) when Andy wanted to look at the Puako petroglyphs – we turned around. We wanted to see the lavaflow up close and I chickened out – 4 mile round trip over uneven lava, return in the darkness. Andy did not get to see the Pu’u Loa petroglyphs either, another unshaded lava hike. We actually went to a lot of beautiful places, but did not have enough time to really see them, hike them, explore them. The Volcanoes cabins (at Namakani Paio) were filthy, cramped and expensive.

The conclusion: I’ll plan the next trip, not California, which we will change the planning together, but the one after. We’ll stay 3-4 nights in one place, limit driving to about 1 hour on most days, do more hiking, swimming, snorchling, playing instead. Andy can take one of these 3-4 days off family and drive around and explore on his own.

Leilani, Andy and Mauna Kea at the saddle:

Snorkeling at “Two-Step” right near Honaunau place of refuge heiau:

Sunset at Ho’okena Beach:

Ho’okena swimming:

Black sand baby:

Lava entering the ocean:

Lava watchers:

Cabin at Volcano National Park (Namakani Paio campground):

Thumbs down:

Just found a few old photos, no links on this one…. big island photos coming soon.

By herself!

The title should really be Leilani “reads” a “book” but I’m still really proud of her. I put her in the playpen to wash dishes this morning, and then I hear her making the sound she makes for cat. When I turned around to look, she had her cloth book open to the pages with drawings of a dog and cat. I later recreated the scene for this picture:

It’s incredible how fast she can learn things. A few weeks ago, she started doing a purring noise whenever she saw one of our cats. Mommy had told her that cats meow and purr, and she picked up on the prrrrr sound because it’s one she can make (with tongue flapping against the roof of her mouth). Then last week she started doing a panting noise for dog, and we’re not sure how she picked that up, maybe from the neighbor’s dog panting in her face whenever we help her pet him.

These two noises have become her associations with the animals, and we started pointing out and naming dogs and cats in her books, prompting her for the noise. So when she sees the familiar pictures or drawings of dogs and cats, she now makes the noise by herself. But this was the first time she opened a book by herself to those pictures, and made the noise all by herself, without any prompting or pointing. So she was essentially reading the book.

PS: This is the last post for a week, we’re off to the Big Island in 2 hours–Leilani’s first airplane ride.

Leilani has recently been fascinated with grabbing lots of things, some more annoying than others. First it was eye-glasses and sunglasses, but I put a stop to that and she really seems to understand. Next it was pens, she loves pens, which is OK as long as we make sure they are not open and not too sharp. But above all, Leilani loves paper. She will grab it really quickly and crumple it and then start pulling, tearing, biting and eating it if we let her.

In a way this is really cute, and since a little ink isn’t too toxic, it’s not that big a problem … until she grabs a shopping list or a check. This leads to one of those parenting gray areas: do we let her do it, which implicitly encourages her, or forbid it completely like the glasses? Because she really enjoys it, we’ve taken the middle road: we try to “approve” every piece she grabs, and either let her have it or take it away (and substitute some other toy to avoid crying).

So I was at the grocery store today, and I was getting some cans off the bottom shelf when I hear Leilani crumpling paper. “Uh oh,” I think, “I must’ve left the shopping list near her.” So I get up quickly and I see her eating coupons. It took me a while to find out where she got them:

Fortunately, I had the digital camera, and it has a movie mode. I was laughing so hard, I let her pull out a half-dozen more coupons. I used to think those stupid coupon dispensers were useless, but now I know they provide baby entertainment. I think we’ll take Leilani back to play with them again.