June 2014

End o’ the School Year
—Another lost tooth: Annika has now lost all of her front teeth, and is starting on the sides. The Tooth Fairy is having to work pretty hard these days!
—Mathea's birthday party: Annika’s friend Mathea had her 6th birthday party at the aquatic park in Morgan Hill while Mamalah was visiting, so R. took her and Mom and I stayed here with Lukas. Annika was fearless — jumping off of diving boards, splashing around in the water, etc. At a shift change, a lifeguard said she needed to do a swim test to be allowed to stay in the lap pool, so she just knocked out a 25-meter lap like it was nothing (she’s been doing that at swim lessons, having moved from the baby end of the pool), and earned a bracelet showing she was OK to be in that area. Go, little mermaid!
—Kindergarten park day: During the last week of school, all of the K and TK classes took a field trip to a local park, about a one-mile walk from campus. I went as chaperone, and it was every bit as chaotic as you would expect a five-hour stay at a sun-drenched, bathroomless playground for 150 5- and 6-year-olds would be. But she had a fantastic time, and slept like a rock that night, so it went much better than I anticipated. Even Lukas enjoyed himself, barreling around on equipment that was much too big for him — he seemed to really dig the chaos. Oi.
—The last day of school: I think this was a bigger deal for R. and I than for Annika … she was glad to be getting done with the school year, but it wasn’t a big momentous thing. After we picked her up, Lukas and I took her for ice cream, and then we came home and got into the pool — a good end to a good first year. 

Dance recital week
So the week after the end of school was more or less entirely given over to preparation for Annika’s dance recital — rehearsals, picture day, dress rehearsal, finale rehearsal (all of which involved separate trips to Campbell, at very specific times), and finally the recital itself.  We decided to go ahead and take Lukas — it was a gamble, because he’d behaved like a feral monkey at dress rehearsal (and I’d had to remove him to outdoors, where — luckily — we’d found a skate park nearby and he had stared in total fascination at the “big kids” skateboarding), but he did really, really well. Annika’s dance was ADORABLE, and she was clearly enjoying being up there on stage — all smiles, nailing all the moves, having a great time. She was also thrilled to be in the finale (her group had been too young last year), and for the next month would keep adding finales to just about everything. We got some great pics of the little dancer, who says she wants to take the summer off and then do “ONLY BALLET” next year (instead of the combo ballet/tap class she’s been in these two years). All righty then! The only drawback of this recital was its timing — it was on Father’s Day, and it meant that we had to sell our tickets to see the Yankees in Oakland (bought months ago, because of its being Derek Jeter’s last trip out here, before we knew which one of four recital programs her dance would be in … a one in four chance, and it was the jackpot). Ahh, well! :-)

Annika’s interests these days
—Blue is Annika's favorite color: After years of PINK ONLY AND ONLY PINK, Annika has decided that blue is her favorite color. Now nothing but blue will do.
—Maximum Maxi Dresses: The Blue Rule goes double for the new style of dresses she prefers: the maxi dress. I bought her several, based on her Frozen love, all of which touch the floor or almost do. They’re ALL SHE WEARS. There is sadness upon the land if a destination or activity doesn’t fit the maxi dress. There is sadness when laundry must be done. Only maxi dress can stop the sadness.
—Engineering: Influenced by the omnipresent PAW Patrol, she decided she wanted a helicopter — so she built one from a cardboard box. It has multicolored buttons, seat cushion, etc. (all fashioned from paper, cardboard, and about six thousand yards of scotch tape). It is painted blue, has top and back rotors and front windshield, and is openable at the sides to reveal the engine. Note proper safety goggles, also handmade; they come in handy both while flying the helo and while attending to mechanical maintenance with power tools (including a Spider-Man pincer thingy and a "drill" from a Home Depot kids' set).

Lukas the hilarious
We’ve started getting pizza after dance class every other week or so, at this great new NY pizza joint. One evening while we were waiting for our order at the counter, Lukas wandered off and when I looked for him, he had climbed up into a booth with a family who were eating their dinner. I found him sitting there, smiling all around, acting like he was their third kid, just makin’ friends … they were charmed, and he thought he was hilaaaarious. Heh. 

Hawaii
The second half of the month was the most fabulous: We were in Hawaii! 

—For the first couple of days, both kids were total bastards. The flight went OK, but as soon as we got there, they each became their worst selves — Annika whiny and prone to meltdowns, Lukas stubborn and difficult and both completely unfixable by any means we tried. They didn’t like all staying in one hotel room the first night (neither did we, but in the planning stages, it had seemed like the right call after the 7:00 a.m. flight, rather than driving on to Hilo that day), they hated the drive across the island to Hilo (we rather liked it — lunar landscape, little-seen vistas, fog and rain at the summit), they hated the house in Hilo (it was really weird and janky, but that’s Hilo, unless you want to pay $500/night for something super-luxe), the food was all wrong, there were no swimmable beaches, etc. etc. etc. to infinity. They were miserable, and they made us miserable as well.
—There was a big slide — curvy and two stories high — at the hotel in Kona. It was a little scary, but Annika did it with R. — and then again and again by herself. That’s our brave girl!
—Volcanoes National Park was great. We joined a short walking tour, saw some of the extinct calderas, watched smoke rise from a distant, active one, and enjoyed the visitors’ center. We're looking forward to longer hikes once the kids are older (and not being bastards).
—Underwhelmed by the east/Hilo side of the island, we cut our visit there short by a day and drove back across to our home base in Kohala (the Fairways Mauna Lani). We stopped on the way for malasadas at a famous little restaurant (amaaaaaazing), and made a short detour to Waipi’o Point, this astonishing lookout high atop a cliff, where you could see the lines of where tsunamis had struck in the past. But we were all so thrilled and relieved to be “home” when we finally got there — we just ditched all our bags, put on swimsuits, and hit the beach club. I didn’t even ask R. if he wanted a beer from the restaurant — I just went up there and got us one. Vacation rebooted!
—The bizarre magic of Paw Patrol: Safely back on familiar turf, R. finally got it out of Annika that one of the things making her miserable was that she didn’t have her customary 2 episodes of Paw Patrol to watch each evening. Well. At that point, we would have given them each a pony and a wad of candy bigger than a Volkswagen if it would have improved their (and thus, our) moods, so R. bought some episodes on the computer and set the kids up. It was like MAGIC. Magic. They weren’t perfect the rest of the time, or anything, but balance in life was restored and they more or less quit acting like demons from hell, so — win!
—Annika was an ace snorkeler, this trip; she had her own mask and fins (and R. went ahead and bought a set for himself, given that he would need them for two weeks this time, and hopefully many times after), and she just took to the water like a born mermaid. The two of them would go out for 45 minutes to an hour, once or twice each beach day, swimming far out, going around the point at the edge of the cove, etc. It was amazing to watch. One outing, when R. was teaching her to free-dive in the channels between the coral, she even came face-to-face with a manta ray — a big one, which R. estimated had about a 7-foot wingspan. She surfaced immediately and kind of fled back to the beach, but half an hour later, she was back in the water. Wow! She also worked on boogie boarding, and a little bit of stand-up boogie boarding (“surfing”) with Daddy pulling her along with the rope. She’s got great balance and could stay up for pretty good distances. Maybe next time she’ll want a surfing lesson for real!
—Lukas the robot/Giant Alex: Lukas went in the water a lot, and loved it, but didn’t have quite the stamina that Annika. Often, he would stomp around going “Fi! Fum! Giant Owex, here I come!” — which is his version of a Paw Patrol episode where one of the pups has a dream in which a little kid — Alex — turns into a giant and says “Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum! Look out, here I come!” If Annika’s fins were not in use, he would put them on, to enhance his stomping; occasionally, he would mix it up and be a robot (wobot) instead.
—The luau: We went to a big luau at the Fairmont one night. The show was pretty good; the kids were really wowed by the fire dances, although Lukas was a little scared by some of it and needed to sit with Daddy for most of it. They both got big Polynesian temporary tattoos (part of the cultural education before the show started) and ate chunks of coconut hacked apart by a machete, island-style. Annika loved the music so much that she asked for (and received) the soundtrack. 

R. and I, as always, can’t wait to go back — so much of it was so awesome — but given the tetchiness of the kids even after we discovered what ailed them, plus Annika’s newly-developed fear of flying (she threw up during our landing in San Jose, poor kid), we’re going to have to work on them first before we attempt it again. Whew!

The Quotable Lukas
—“Gween Gwob-win” aka The Green Goblin, one of Spider-Man’s many nemeses
—“NO! I WANT DADDY! DADDY DO IT!” … and variations on a theme (e.g. “NO! YOU go to wuhk! DADDY stay home wif Wukas!”). He’s in a major, major Daddy phase.
—“I burped my butt!” His rather original term for farting.