Saturday, December 28, 2013

Mele Kalikimaka!

Merry belated Christmas!  We've been busy.  First, we went to Santa's Village on base, where Xander thoroughly enjoyed the toddler bouncer.  So much so, in fact, that he jumped himself exhausted, tried to lie down and take a nap in the bouncer, and I had to have an attendant retrieve him.  I guess he figured he would wake up and bounce some more.

After that, we that saw a Christmas boat show.  Bobby has all of the pictures, but it was fun.  The boats paraded around Hawaii Kai marina.

Then we went to the beach, secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of the president.  No such luck.  Apparently, when he does go to the beach, everyone else has to leave.  He has been hanging around the base a good deal since his home is close by.  I guess the secret service folk prefer for him to be on a military base with controlled access.

Then there was Christmas Day.  Christmas day was a blast with Xander.  He didn't see it coming, and was deliriously happy to suddenly get a bunch of new toys.  The cookies and sugary cereal we let him eat helped.

Bouncy house!

I love this shot.  It was our private stretch of beach!

Total beach hound!

OMG!  Another train set!

Christmas morning.

Blocks!

Another train!  He's in choo choo heaven!

Xander's loot lined up and waiting for him to wake up from his nap (which Dad joined).

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Living in America

I miss Korea sometimes.  I really miss some of the friends we made there (here's looking at you, Uncle Jin), and I miss the financial security.  Money certainly isn't everything, but Hawaii has significantly humbled us.  Life without a housing allowance in the most expensive state in the union is hard.  And as a new adult, I feel a little like a failure having gone from complete financial security to living from paycheck to paycheck, and watching the balance on our credit card climb.  Here's the thing, though. When you live abroad, particularly in a place like Korea, nothing feels permanent.  People constantly come and go.  No one ever says, "I'm going to buy a house and settle down here."  It's just not possible. Once a person retires, the work visa disappears.  Living in Korea was a little like dropping out for awhile.  We enjoyed not having the day to day worries of working folks with kids, but we knew we couldn't stay forever.  When Hawaii came along, we saw an opportunity to continue the adventure of living in a different place, but in our own country, and we took it.

We question this decision constantly.

On Saturday, we saw the Kaneohe Christmas Parade.  It was a short walk from our apartment.  It had all the pomp of the small city parades that I have seen, with floats and bands, but with a little Hawaii thrown in.  There were hula floats and fire twirlers.  Xander was ecstatic.  He loved the music, he loved the trucks, and he loved the people waving at him.  As I watched him, I was happy to be here.  We didn't have Christmas parades in Korea.  And despite what my disaffected friends say about the commercialization if Christmas, it's still a lot of fun.  Particularly when you have children.  I am glad to be back in the land of Christmas lights and parades and concerts.  Most of which, by the way, we can enjoy for free.

My husband.  He's no millionaire, but what a great daddy.

When it rains, we go to the mall.

Hiking the Judd Memorial trail.

This one didn't come out right, but that's the Marine Corps band.  The man in front of us is military.  You can tell because he stands at attention when they play the Marine Corps anthem.


The low riders.

Hula float.

Fire twirlers.

Santa!  It was hot; he must have been uncomfortable.

I never saw so many shaka signs.  I guess it's easier than waving.

Wooow!

Ukeleles.

A dude on a motorized picnic table.  The true spirit of aloha!

It was Pearl Harbor day, so the theme was "honoring our military."

I failed to get a picture of the veteran of the 442nd infantry regiment, which is a shame.  That guy was a badass.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

A question for the ages

It has not been a stellar week.  First my car wouldn't start.  We had it towed to the Toyota dealership (no general mechanics for this baby, it has to be serviced at the dealership).  The person assigned to our car said that it needed a new battery, and would be repaired sometime that week.  I have a Prius, so it's not the simple battery job that you would think.  We were wondering how I would get to work, but they said "no loaners unless it's a high dollar repair."  Three days later, after much checking back, the guy told Bobby that he needed a work order for the car, signed by the owner.  Okay...so we took care of that.  The person at the dealership apologized profusely for our previous handler, who is the owner's son and pretty bad at his job.  He also mentioned that the car needs new cables, since the previous owner tried to MacGuyver a non-standard battery into the car by splicing and stretching the cables.  Oh, and would we like a loaner?  Bother.

I was surprisingly more upset to lose our ergo baby.  The ergo has been our companion since X was born.  We now use it for hiking.  It has a lot of sentimental value, and even a used one is costly.  Since Wednesday was my birthday, Bobby bought me a used Beco butterfly II.  It promises to be a better toddler carrier than the ergo.  We'll try it out when the weather clears up.

X just came up to me and reminded me that there are bigger problems.  He thrust his dump truck jammies into my lap and indicated that he wanted to wear them.  I told him that we don't wear jammies during the day, and he got pretty upset.  Why, oh why can't we wear jammies during the day?  That's a question for the ages.

Farewell, ergo.  I hope you make another baby happy.






Gobble, gobble!

Sunday, November 24, 2013

November

It's birthday month!  Given our limited funds, it's mainly birthday month for X, but I don't mind.  Giving a two year old a cool new toy is a lot of fun.  He's not old enough to ask for things for his birthday, but he is old enough to take delight in them.  Oh, and it's November and we're hanging out in swimsuits on the beach.  The novelty of this has not worn off.

Sharing cupcakes with the library staff.

Then we went to the playground.

Birthday morning, still in his jammies while daddy tries to secretly set up the train table.

Success!  He loves it!

Hanging out at the beach on Saturday sporting Cars jijis.

Hanging out at the beach on Sunday.

Dad makes a wicked kiddie pool!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

More X Chronicles

My cat decided that my Macbook Pro needed a bath.  While Bobby experiences the Apple store for the first time, dipping into our massive savings account (e.g. the credit card) to pay whatever ungodly sum the geniuses demand of us, I am using his computer to blog.  So no pictures this time.  You'll just have to wait for your cuteness fix.

X has decided that since he loves his Cars pajamas, he should only wear his Cars pajamas.  Ever.  He'll sit on the floor, arms crossed over his chest, and declare "no shirt! no shirt!" as his poor daddy tries to entice him--"how about monster truck shirt?  Superhero shirt?"-- to let himself be undressed in the morning.  When he's home, he will find his Cars jammies and thrust them into my lap.  When I set them aside, he will cry out in frustration and put them back in my lap.  He can't understand why his Mommy doesn't get that he wants to put his Cars jammies on.   We have started storing Cars jammies in a place where he can't see or reach them.  At bedtime, he parades around in his Cars jammies, eyeballing himself in the mirror.  "Cars jiji's! Cars jijis!"  One wonders why we wasted money on his other pajamas.  Or, for that matter, what we'll do if the temperature starts dropping at night again, necessitating pajama pants.  Cars jammies are shortie pajamas.  At least we live in a tropical climate.

He has learned how to use the Netflix app on the ipad.  Since he can select what he wants to watch from a pretty expansive list, we are getting an interesting glimpse into his mind.  He loves the "Thomas the Train" theme song and a little cartoon with a car and a bus.  He never watches anything for more than a minute or two. Last night, he watched the first half of the opening sequence to "Daddy Day Care" at least 20 times.  He watched the little boy get up and brush his teeth while "Walking on Sunshine" played, but he was not interested in anything after that.   I deleted the Netflix app after he went to bed.  As it turns out, an adult's tolerance for repetitions of the first minute of "Walking on Sunshine" is significantly lower than a toddler's.

Oh, and Halloween happened.  My precocious troublemaker with blue eyes and wild blond hair went as Calvin.  I went as Hobbes.  Bobby, who looks a good deal like Walter White with the right clothes, went as Breaking Bad's antihero.  Candy was had.  Mostly by mom and dad.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Aloha Parenting

I found this post languishing in my drafts.  We took X to the Waikiki Aquarium a few weeks ago.  We were victims of a little passive aggressive parent shaming.   X was climbing up and down these stone steps outside an another parent told her child that the steps were not a toy.  I guiltily pulled X off of the steps.  He proceeded to grab a nut and throw it around, chasing it, while Bobby called him, "a nut with a nut."  He was probably burning off the sugary danish we gave him in the morning.  The other mom was giving her toddler a biology lesson.  They probably had granola for breakfast.

We felt a little like lazy parents, but hey.  It was a beautiful day, and X was happy.  He wanted to be friends with the good kid, but I guess his parents had warned him.

The aquarium, by the way, was fantastic.  They had little toddler step stools at the base of all of the tanks, perfect for X to peer in.

Having a snack on the Judd Memorial Trail

A really cool sunset.  It looks like the mountain is on fire.

Fish!




A nut chasing a nut

"Will you be my friend?" "My mom thinks you're a bad influence."





The X Chronicles

Independence

My sweet little boy said "no" to his daddy for the first time the other day.  Every morning, he throws all of his stuffed animals out of his crib.  Bobby picks him up, sets him on the floor, and he puts his stuffed animals back in the crib.  It's one of his many rituals.

Until one morning, when X said, "no!" and ran out of the room.  Stunned, we listened to his feet patter to the kitchen.

"Momo?  Momo?"

"You can have your milk when you put your toys away."

X ran back into the room and hurled himself onto the pile of stuffed animals in anguish.  The terrible twos are here.


Reading

One of the most delightful aspects of X's burgeoning maturity is his ability to "read" his own stories.  He can tell me portions of several of his books.  My favorite, hands down, is Clifford's Bedtime.  He uses his own words instead of the "proper" ones, which is really sweet and shows me that he knows what is happening on the page.  We read this one almost every night.

"Clifford's not ready for bed.  He needs...?"
"Beaw!"
"He needs his bear! He needs...?"
"Beebee!"
"He needs his blankie! He needs...?"
"Momo." (Momo is usually spoken solemnly.  It is serious business.)
"He needs a drink of water."


Death by Singing

X loves songs, particularly ones that he has heard several times before.  I made the mistake of singing "Old Mac Donald" but giving the man an airplane.  X made me sing that verse over and over.  Now, the only animals that Mac Donald is allowed to have are an airplane, a helicopter, a bus, a truck, and a motorcycle.

His little mind has grown so much over the past few months.

We hiked to Makapu'u Lookout on Discoverer's Day.  You can see Molokai from there.

My hiking buddy

Beautiful blue-green water


The view from Kaneohe Friendship Garden.  You could actually see Molokai on the other side, but I covered the camera with my thumb.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Return to Pali

We visited the Pali lookout when we first visited Hawaii in 2012. We returned today with our sights on the Old Pali Road, not to be confused with the ancient Pali Road, which was the cobblestone pathway we hiked on to get to Likeke Falls.  The Old Pali Road is a nice trail that winds down from the Pali lookout.  The Pali Lookout, by the way, offers spectacular views of Windward Oahu and was the site where Kamehameha I drove the army of his enemy over the cliffs.  It's also overrun with tourists.  Xander met the Asian paparazzi, which made us think of our Korean home.  He has to be all over the Korean internet.
Not a bad place to fall to one's death



A cistern?  For flood control?  No idea.

There are Korean hikers here!

The paparazzi