Chinese New Year

I was always a little disappointed that there was no Lunar New Year spectacle in Korea, so we were pleased to be able to go to a Chinese New Year festival this weekend.  We saw the lion dances and ate some great Chinese food (okay, nothing compared to Chinese food in China.  I guess we have to speak Mandarin to get that).

We didn't see the parade as it was right in the middle of nap time.  Maybe next year.

We were sorry to miss big wave Wednesday.  Apparently the swells hit forty feet on the North Shore.

X got a little red dragon

The lion dancers

They went into each of the shops.  Perhaps a blessing?

The drummers keeping time.

In front of Sun Yat-Sen.

The Big Kid Bed

On Wednesday night, I woke up at 1:30 to the sounds of toddler glee.  X was playing in his crib again. He often wakes up in the middle of the night and plays by himself.  I let him play for about an hour and a half, then went in to bring him some milk and check his diaper.  I rocked him a little, and when he didn't go back to sleep, I put him in his crib.  He screamed for a bit--the neighbors must love us--then settled down and tried to go to sleep.  I watched him toss around on the video monitor for a little while, then went back in for him.  I woke his daddy up and asked him to watch TV with his son for awhile.  Daddy, a champion at falling asleep in any situation, conked out on the couch and X ran amock for awhile, waking me up.  After the neighbors--we have wonderful neighbors-- called security on us, we put him back in his crib.  He screamed again, then I heard the door open.  It had taken him ten seconds to figure out how to climb out of his crib.  He spent the rest of the night in bed with us, playing iphone games and thrusting the iphone forcefully at one of us when he needed help.

On Thursday, we both had to work and were too wrecked to think about converting his bed, so we did what we could to toddler proof his room, then put the doorknob cover on the inside of his door.  We figured, exhausted as he was, he would just go to sleep.  Ten seconds after I put him down, he was knocking on the door.  I put him back in his crib.  He climbed back out again.  I put him back. He climbed out again.  After about five times, I decided to let him be.  He fell asleep on the floor in front of the door.  Bobby had to prod him with a back scratcher until he rolled over and I could slip in and put X in his crib.

On Friday, Bobby converted his crib to a toddler bed before he went to work.  We left the doorknob cover on the door, and X fell asleep in front of the door again.  As we did the previous night, we maneuvered him into his bed after he fell asleep.

Yesterday, I took him to the Target, where he chose only Thomas the Train sheets, a blanket, and a throw.  I had to sneak a second set of sheets into the shopping cart when he wasn't looking.  Last night, he actually lay down in his bed and let me read stories to him.  He told me goodnight.  Full of pride, I grabbed the monitor to show Bobby that X was in his bed, turning it on in time to see him climb out.  He had finally recognized what a marvelous opportunity this was, and instead him knocking on the door, we heard him emptying the contents of his toy box.  Nonetheless, after a half hour of playing, he crawled back into his bed.  When I woke in the morning, he was on the floor.  Small steps.

I am glad that this isn't a "mommy blog," because I can only imagine what the mommy blogosphere would say about me locking my child in his room at night.

Surrounded by Thomas

Another day in paradise...

In his new bed.  He pulled the mobile out of the closet and cried for me to put it back up, and I obliged.

Bellows Air Force Beach

Big waves!

We have been waiting for a high surf warning that corresponded with a mutual day off, and we finally got one last Sunday.  So we travelled to the Pipeline at Sunset Beach and saw big waves.  It was not too hard to keep X out of the water, since the sand at the North Shore is the perfect mixture of wet and dry for digging.  He tried out his new bulldozer, made some friends, and generally had a good time.

This Saturday, we went to the Lanikai Pillbox trail.  Despite being billed as a kid friendly hike, it was not easy to do with a toddler on my back.  There was a lot of scrambling up and down boulders.  I didn't want to let him walk too much because of the steep drop offs on both sides.  We only made it to the first pillbox before I called it quits.  X, however, enjoyed the view.  He kept talking about the fishies in the water.

People watching the surfers

It's hard to see how big they are, but you can see the spray everywhere.

It was like they were crashing in slow motion.

At the playground

Lanikai Pillbox

This is why we don't have nice things..

X is a good boy most of the time.  He says "thank you" and "sorry"--often for random things, but still--and he usually does what I ask him to do.  He takes pride in helping around the house.  His chore is feeding the cat, which he loves to do.  He likes to help me cook and clean.

Yesterday, Bobby was doing some laundry.  He went to the bathroom for a minute, and came out to discover X cleaning up some spilled milk with Bobby's nicest shirt, chanting "dean, dean!"  He swallowed his frustration and thanked his son profusely for his help.

Looking handsome in his elephant shirt from Thailand

At the Tantalus Lookout

and a Happy New Year!

By and large, I like Hawaii.  I have a few hangups, which are the same as everyone else's: traffic, parking, and the cost of living.  I think that the benefits far outweigh the setbacks.  Even after New Years, when I discovered my very least favorite thing about Hawaii: F-ing New Year's.

On New Year's eve, this place turns into a war zone.  Before the sun even goes down, there are loud bangs from every direction.  The noise intensifies until midnight, when it slowly tapers off.

I'm not talking about a municipal firecracker show.  There weren't folks shooting off bottle rockets and those fireworks that whizz around on the ground in their yards.  These were high caliber fireworks being shot from every direction.  They were exploding outside of my third floor window because people were shooting them from the driveway below.  And in the dog park behind the complex.  And in the courtyard in the middle of the complex.  Not to mention from the balconies of the complex next door, from their parking lot, and, as I discovered this morning, from the fire hydrants on our sidewalks.  We later read in the news that a stray bullet penetrated a home in Honolulu.  I appreciate fireworks as much as the next person, but give me a break!  Ridiculous.  I later discovered that the big fireworks are illegal unless a permit is purchased, but I guess so many people violate that rule that it's not enforceable.  Maybe we will spend next New Year's on the base.  Apparently, they don't allow fireworks.

Complete jackassery...