Arrival in Hawaii!

We arrived last Monday in Honolulu. It was an extremely hectic time, visiting way too many daycares, interviewing nannies, visiting apartments and trying to line up furniture. Paul and I were part of the Governor's press conference the day after we arrived. Luckily, Pop-pop came with us so he could watch Leo while all these logistics were getting sorted out. Here's a few pictures of the first crazy week. Paul and I are now working really hard, even though we're still living out of suitcases and finding office space. Leo is doing well, having a blast in the new location with all the new sights and smells and sounds.


A kayak ride in the lagoon behind the hotel. This Hilton lagoon is perfect for wading and learning to swim. Leo has been catching fish in the lagoon too, using his crocs as nets.


Leo and Paul at the Thai restaurant.


We did a whale watching catamaran ride on Sunday. Pop-pop got sick but Leo stood in the very front of the boat, got soaking wet, and loved it! I didn't see the whales but apparently there were some, including one pretty close to the boat.



We're trying to get this apartment at the Moana Pacific, a new high rise near our work places. It's huge, but that means plenty of room for you to come visit!



Leo's new nanny, Juliana, from Brazil. We looked at 6 daycares and the waiting lists were long, there was very little outdoor space (we're in the middle of a BIG city), and the student/teacher ratios were 12:1. It was scary, so we started to look at nannies and Juliana got rave recommendations. She just moved here too, from Boston.



The rotating restaurant Top of Waikiki

Right past my brain

Leo was trying to say something while he was distracted with his toys. He kept repeating words, saying, "but but but". Paul pointed out that he was so distracted, he couldn't even talk properly. Leo replied, "Like the words I was gonna say, zoom right past my brain."

Old!

Leo pointed to the Netflix DVD that I was mailing out today, because he thought it was an incoming movie. I explained that we returned the old ones and that's how we got new ones. He asked if it was really really really old? Like as old as Daddy?

Distracted

Today Paul said Leo was supposed to put on his clothes but said he was distracted. Paul asked Leo what distracted meant. Leo said, "when something catches your eye and you play with it instead of doing what your mommy and daddy said"

Loss of innocence

In the last few weeks, Leo has had a great interest in my boobs. He thinks he can suck milk out of them. I've explained that I don't have milk anymore. But he's a little obsessed, probably the way most males (and probably females) are.

Tonight he pulled an art magnet off the fridge. It's a painting (John Grimshaw?) of a fairy, I think. Leo asked me what it was and I guessed, tinkerbell? A fairy? A dragonfly woman? He said, "its a woman with wings coming out of the water". I asked him if he like the art and he said yes. Then he said, "she's NAKED". I asked him if he liked that and he said, "YES" and gave me this smile, a sort of knowing smile. Like he knew this was some kind of taboo but he felt it strongly and was sort of impish about it.

I just don't get it. I tried real hard to be casual about all the weird nudity hang-ups that most Americans have. We take baths together. He doesn't get weird about that. But he still manages to learn the taboos. Shortly thereafter, he decided he wanted into my shirt. I had to explain again, No, I don't have milk, that was a long time ago.

I guess this boob obsession and nudity hangup is just beyond anything that I have control over.

When I'm an adult

In order to get Leo to go to sleep, I often tell him that I will sleep with him for a few minutes, then I will go upstairs and clean up, and then I will come back to check on him. Tonight he said,"when I'm an adult, I will go upstairs and clean up". I said that would be great. He said, "and then I won't play with kids toys anymore". I explained that playing with kids toys is a lot more fun than cleaning up. He said, "yes, cleaning up is not fun".

Distracted

We were explaining to Leo what the word distracted meant. It took some examples to get the point across. Leo finally got it and said, "I NEVER get distracted!"

Emily plays with me

On Feb 6, Leo brought home a drawing of his classmate Emily. Emily, like Leo, came from the TODS3 classroom and was merged into this older, bigger class, Preschool2, while the other TODS3 kids went into a smaller class, Preschool1. Cameron, who was in Preschool2 last year, remained in Preschool2 this year. The rest of Leo's classmates are approx 17 kids who were all in Preschool1 last year and all know each other well as a result.

Because of this, and because Leo is independent and conflict-avoidant, he doesn't play with the 17 kids who were in Preschool1 last year. He pretty much hangs out with the teacher, Leif, or just plays with Emily and Cameron, although Cameron often doesn't like Leo.

Anyway, the class was instructed to draw pictures of another kid in their class and tell why they liked that kid. Leo drew Emily and said he liked her, "because she plays with me". It was hard for me to hear that, being someone who had a hard time finding friends in school as well.

Saving energy

I was explaining cartoons in the Sierra Club magazine to Leo. One was about saving energy. I asked him what he did to save energy. He said, "Plug the inside of my belly up!"

Later we were exchanging insults and he said to me, "That's how you booger your mom's eyeball poop!" And when I went to write it down - "I knew she would write that down".

Poop and stuff

We're sitting in the bathroom. Leo says "this poop is really big. It could rip my butt in half!"

I farted. I said "wasn't me - it was Daddy." Leo said, "no Daddy's not here". I said it was Pop-pop. Leo said, "no, Pop-pop is in NJ". I said it was Kyla, his friend at school. He said, "no, she's at school". He wouldn't even believe the barking spider excuse.

This morning Leo was being dramatic. He said, "Dammit! How many owies can I hold in one place?", pointing to his arm. He put his hand to his forehand and said, "duh!"

Later, while gluing his art (yes, in the morning before going to school), he said, "What is that smell? It's silent but violent!"

Camp Hi-De-Ho

Leo likes to tell this ghost story about Camp Hi-De-Ho.

He says, "It's so scary it will freeze your legs off.

The name of this story is Sleep Tight. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs BITE!

There was an owl in the woods. And he saw a GHOSTLIGHT!

And some screaming banshees.

They heard voices. Some were scary voices. And they couldn't leave their tent. Then they left the tent.

There was a dripping nose. And no tissues. NONE!"

Notes on growing up

This week, Leo has begun to draw more coherent pictures. He’s drawing identifiable faces and objects. He did a whole series of “this is the inside of a zebra”, fish, and other animals. The weird thing was that a week later, he still knew which was the fish or the zebra or whatever. Every day when I pick him up from school, the bulk of the boys are climbing on Leif (the big male teacher), the few girls in the class are playing house or dressup, and Leo is at the art table, where he’s been for the last hour. He’s gluing stuff, drawing stuff, making tons of art to take home. He loves little bits of beads and sticks and colorful stuff that he shoves into his pockets and uses for art projects. I’m going to have to get big boxes to store all his creations. At home, he makes styrofoam creations with toothpicks and skewers and colorful paper.

Thursday, he started writing words. I was amazed. He wrote MOM and NO. He gets upset when he writes the letters badly. He wrote QOOM.

Today we went to the UMC bowling alley for Jay’s birthday party. Leo had little interest in the bowling after a couple tries, and it took minutes for the ball to reach the pins. One time, I had to walk down the lane and push the ball in as it had stopped. We got a ramp and then he managed a strike! But he was mostly interested in the video games. So after much begging, I finally took him over to the South Park pinball machine. The birthday boy was also bored, so I let him play some shoot-em-up game that he was begging to play. Leo did so well with the pinball (he’s not too good at pulling the pin to shoot the ball up but he controls the flippers really well) that he was playing for a good 10-15 minutes, just getting bonus after bonus and flipping away.

More math

I was putting Leo down tonight after we had been at Vicki's house. I was trying to get him to lie down and calm down so I asked him how many pets Joylin had. He replied 2 - for the two dogs. I said what about the hermit crabs, and he said 2. I said and the kitty cat? He said, she has 2 dogs, 2 hermit crabs, and 1 kitty cat. I asked how many that was altogether and without missing a beat, he said 5. I was so proud and surprised - I nearly fell off the bed.

Leo's first skiing at a resort

Leo and I went up to Eldora Sat. I had such an amazing spring skiing day at Copper Fri that I felt compelled to take Leo skiing. And since Kyla had successfully gone, I thought Leo was ready. Eldora was sunny and calm and fairly warm. It was a disaster, although I guess it could have been worse. We got a bit of a late start and ended up parking far from the lift. We had Joe's passes so we didn't need tickets luckily. Leo wanted to use his plastic 'clown' skis so we didn't rent real skis at first. I had him practice sliding and walking with the clown skis. We used the edgie wedgies and practiced the pizza slice. He really wanted to go on the 'rides' or lifts. I told him that after he mastered the rope tow ride, he could go on the chair lift ride. He really wanted to go on the rides.

So we made the 1/2 mile? trek across the snow to the lodge where they rent skis and we got him some real skis. Then we trekked back. There's a little bunny hill next to the lodge but they reserve it for ski school only. So we kept going back to the rope tow. He got tired of walking so I carried him, his boots and his skis. It took a long time to get back. Then we had to wait in a long line for the rope tow. We finally got up to the rope tow and I had forgotten to tell him to keep his skis straight and he immediately crossed his tips and face-planted. I pulled him up the slope a little and was going to use the leash to help him down. I put the little edgie wedgie on his skis and that was it. He started crying and saying he never wanted to come back here again. He cried for the next, oh, half hour or hour or so. I removed the skis and boots, and carried him to the car. I gave him candy. I put on his favorite Pixar CD. He said several times that day that he did not want to ever go back there again. So much for skiing. Maybe we'll try next year...

Debbie's Birthday Bash Turned Ball Fight...

My birthday party this year turned into a giant ball fight for all the kids in the basement. Adults were scared to go down there. We were still picking up balls days later, all over the house.

Leo's cakes

Leo made styrofoam cakes for Christmas

Dumb

I've been teaching Leo how to read his second word, "Mom". He can already read his name. So I took my birthday locket from my parents and showed Leo the word on the front. I read out, "m-o-m", and asked him what it spelled. He said, "dumb".

Christmas Pictures!

Some pictures from our Christmas festivities!

Down your shirt

We were playing Chutes and Ladders, one of Leo's Christmas presents. I had thrown my back out and was doing some exercises to make it better. Daddy said "I can see down your shirt.". Leo stuck his head in my shirt. Paul said, "Hey, that's my wife." Leo laughed and said, "I'm not going to kill her.

Toys!

Leo was talking to Grandpa about Christmas. Grandpa asked Leo if he got many toys. Leo replied, "Yes, I got millions and billions and trillions of toys."