valentines day our island way

We celebrated. We made about a billion of these cats. Karl was grumbling something about being able to go to K-mart and buying some but the kids wanted to make these kitties and well, you know me, if I can spend more time and money making it, then go for it.

The kids enjoyed the valentine packages from grandparents. Grandparents know how to dote all the way across the ocean so nice of them.

And though not as fancy and lovely (okay, and I'll admit, not as delicious. Samuel couldn't stand it at all) as when I have all my pots and dishes and ingredients, we had our annual Valentine fondue.

I guess the the day was about comfort. Making stuff, giving stuff, getting stuff, traditions... Like a heart themed Christmas.

Merry Valentines Day!

maximus: a quarter of his life in kauai

Playing with toys, laughing, growing what seems like a pound a day, sunset naps on the beach... all of these are Kauai milestones. Another Kauai milestone? Loathing long car rides. You cry the whole way home. And though we all try to help, nothing consoles you. Except getting out of the car, of course. It baffles us because we used to take your siblings on car rides to settle them down.

samuel takes on the beach

The beach.  Beaches.  So many beaches here.  And they are good to Samuel.  We pull up, he runs up and gets to work.  He builds up, he digs down, he takes on the waves.

I have finally learned that stopping at a beach, even if it's just to check it out, means that Samuel will end up drenched and looking like a sugar donut, covered in sand from head to toe.  

A simple mound of sand soon became an amazing volcano.

A place to run and do a few cartwheels.

 An awesome volcano is a perfect place to drop a rock.

And, of course, no better place to stick your leg, right?  I saw this photo and his abs o' steel cracked me up.  His workout routine?  All cardio, all the time. 

Yes, the beach is a great place for this boy and we try and go as much as we can.  Seems that when we enclose him in four walls... well... a while back I (over)shared how Samuel prefers to wipe his boogers on the side of the toilet.  For reasons that I hope are nothing more than boredom, the boogers are back.  So I told the kid (that is how I refer to him when his choices don't reflect my ideal parenting skills) that if I found one more booger then he gets to use the bathroom in the garage.  That means going down the stairs, out to the garage, and to the bathroom that is there for a future ohana (apartment that many of the houses here in Kauai have).  Even at night, which to me, seems so creepy and far.  Next day, guess what we find?  Yep.  Guess who has proudly gone to the bathroom twice in the last two hours?  Yep.  But at least my bathrooms will remain booger free.  

I take suggestions.

Oh, and we got a call from the principal's office.   Turns out "freak" is not on the least of acceptable words here.  And here's the thing, his teacher said he says it so flippantly. I think the kid (see?  There I go calling him the kid again) actually likes to see peoples' eyes get big and start to freak (whoops, looks like it's time to clean up my language) out.  

And though I take suggestions, I have to admit that my follow through is seriously lacking.

I kept finding myself telling Karl that we have no business raising kids.  I always had the vision of contributing to society.  But I feel like we are such takers.  And here we are making more takers.  All five of us, takers #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5 (I feel a little bad calling the baby a taker because that's kind of his job right now).  The husband responds, "but they're so cute." 

Oh great.  That is us doing our share.  Cute, and often times funny, but serious takers, kids.  

Two hours after his sister has fallen asleep at the appropriate bedtime and dad has fallen asleep reading them the Magic Tree House, Samuel comes walking out of the room, all scoonchy-eyed from the "too shiny lights" as he would call them.  He says to me, "I need to give you a kiss." 

The roller coaster.  The drama.  What this kid is lacking in fat on his body, he makes up for in personality.  

And I wish my good intentions could make up for my lack of follow through.

Before we left (and ripped Samuel away from two teachers that adored him and he adored back), Samuel's teacher pulled Karl aside and told him that Samuel is one of the brightest boys that she knows and because he is so active, it gets him into trouble.  She said that if someone doesn't understand that, Samuel shuts down.  And then she got kind of choked up and said that we need to remember that when we find him a new teacher.  

Her words, like those of the wise man's voice over in the movies, keep going through my head.  He is such a sweet sweet sweet kid.  A sweet kid that likes to move.  

And that is why the beach is best for Samuel.

maximoose

Despite my pleas, Baby Maximus, or Maximoose as we have been calling him because of his girth, has continued to get older.  

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Here he is, balancing his big baby belly on his big baby thighs.  It all adds up to something that looks like a baby sitting up.

The Bumbo.  Didn't have one with Eva or Samuel.  They are great.  Got this one at a garage sale.  The mom just gave it to me.  Nice, right?  He doesn't look like a new baby at all anymore.  Especially with his little tan on his face.  

Look at those chubbers.  

Chubby legs, chubby feet, chubby hands, chubby neck, even chubby arm pits!  Who knew that armpits could be so chubby?

Today seemed like an off day.  Maybe it is because grandma and grandpa just left.  Maybe it is because I had stuff to get done.  But whatever the case, he didn't sleep much and and seemed so hungry all the time.  He seems so much more alert, too.  He started grabbing things like his foot, his toy, Karl's nose...  At dinner time, Karl gave him a grain of rice.  Maximus worked on it for a while and then it was gone.  Karl gave him another, another and before I knew it, Samuel and Eva were feeding him.  And though it seems like we must be breaking some sort of baby book rule, we gave him some avocado, too.  Because it was fun.  He downed it.  I have no desire to change "real food" diapers (sorry TMI) so I am hoping to hold off as long as I possibly can within that window that "they" say is okay for a baby.  But if Maximus is going to insist on more food to keep up that figure of his, we might have to cave in.

Seems like he went from teensy newborn to big Buddha baby overnight.  Sigh...

self inflicted house hunting headache

 I assume that somewhere in the Big Book of How to Do Things in a Way That Makes Sense you don't just pack up and move your family to an island without making some simple plans.  We had 11 days covered.  We were going to stay at a resort and have fun and look for a place to rent long term.  I didn't realize it was an either/or thing. Craigslist seemed to be a lot more full of houses when we were browsing a few weeks before we got here so we stopped looking and assumed there would be plenty when we got here (there were plenty of crappy ones, it turns out).  And besides, without somewhat of a feel for the island, we didn't know where to look.

So, here I was, sitting by the pool so I could watch my kids swim, as I looked on line and called and called and called to line up places to look through.  The people who were actually on vacation must have thought I was nuts.  I would have agreed. 

This kids enjoying the pool.  The amazing pool.

 We looked at a so many houses.  So many that I didn't even think to take pictures because I didn't even want to remember.  But now that we are settled a little, I feel better and I am glad that my dad took some photos.

So, this house looks cute, right?  But then you go inside and, well, I just couldn't imagine letting Maximus learn to crawl on those floors.  And the bathroom door was messed up and the lady couldn't get it open and Karl had to use some tool to get it open.  That sounds just perfect for Eva and Samuel, right?  

There were so many gross houses.  Especially the ones that weren't expecting visitors. Gross as in dead cockroaches being eaten by ants (sorry, I know that is so gross).  Gross as in hippie tenants that took the "if it's yellow let it mellow" to the extreme.  Gross as in, "Well, if you scrub it and it's still black, that just means it's stained."  Gross as in a giant colorful spider that ended up on Karl's cheek and the kids wouldn't go near any corner because there were so many of those things.

 Then there were interesting ones like this, uh... Karl called it a geodesic dome.  It would be cool just because we were living in a dome but it wasn't ready for us to live in it.

There were places that were awesome.  With appliances so nice that I would never spend that much on something we actually owned.  With a cute German lady that lived next door that said she would baby sit my kids... "I baby sit your kids, make money."

 Places that had views to die for.  

And everyone says that these are good and that I will like them soon enough.  But for now, they make me want to die.  

And how about those homes that make me want to be really really really rich.  This pool, this view?  But in the end, a pool right outside the back door with kids that only shut the door 10% of the time and a little baby all didn't really seem to make much sense.

The house was GORGEOUS.  Seriously.  I couldn't shut up about it.  Just ask Karl.  It wasn't a McMansion.  It had the most perfect floor plan, highest quality every thing, no wasted space, a huge pantry, all on one floor... my dream home.  I found my dream home.

But they wanted a year commitment and more money than we should spend.  

In the end, time kind of decided where we were going to end up.  A guy would rent us his spec-home/McMansion/everything that Karl was against at one point/too-expensive-house on a month to month basis.  It was ready for us to move in, it was new-ish, it was clean, and it would mean that we wouldn't have to extend our stay at the resort and we were sick of looking for houses.

We also got our first mini van.  Our criteria?  It needed to last six months.  I think we made a good choice with our 1998 Toyota Sienna.  

And even though Samuel broke the door handle off 11 minutes after we bought it, I still think it will last us 6 months.  If you count the back, there are still 4 more door handles that we can use.  And if Samuel gets those, we were lucky enough to grow up in a time where Dukes of Hazard could teach us a thing or two about getting into cars.  Who needs door handles?

House?  Check (for now).

Car?  Check.

All the stuff that we need to live?  Still working on that one.

Tonight, for my bedtime reading, I will look through Craigslist on my phone and see what else I can find to furnish our home.

I totally feel like a poor college student again.  Except this time I have kids and so I am more afraid of gross stuff.

I am not sharing for sympathy, though if you want to share some, I'll accept.  I am sharing because this is part of the adventure.  And in every adventure there has to be tough parts, right?  Oh, and I learned something, too.  Awesome, I know.  I learned that with every house being so so so different, there is not perfect house.  Spider house, hippie house, stinky house, dome house, dream house, house with a reservoir to fish in, million dollar views house, mean landlord house... they all had some great things going for them.  And I am not just trying to make them feel better.  Houses don't have feelings.  I kept hoping for the house in the right neighborhood, in the right setting, in the right school boundaries... but I think I need to just accept that it might not exist.  I seriously didn't even put this much thought and effort in to the house that we actually bought six years ago.  See?  I'm learning.