Aloha

We're back in Hawaii: me, my girls, and my sister-in-law Jessica for a week in one of my favorite places in the world. I've got sun and the sound of ocean waves, myna birds and palm trees, mongooses (the girls prefer "mongeese"), plumeria trees, fresh-cut pineapple and papaya, a fridge full of Pog, and a much-needed week with no plans whatsoever. No school lunches to prep, no gymnastics to rush off to, no homework to check, no dog to clean up after, and no nagging household chores to do.

The girls, still on California time, have been the first up each day. They wake Jessica and me up with music blaring from their iPod, the little thumps of dancing legs just outside our bedroom door, their high girlish voices singing along to Adele.

We sip Kona coffee on the lanai and wait for the day to start. The first few days we were up before sunrise, but today the sun beat us. We've visited a variety of beaches, had pool time each day, have watched a hula show, gone to the beautiful and calming Place of Refuge, and done some shopping. The days have a timeless feel and pass both quickly and slowly. Yesterday we decided to spend an hour at the beach. With twenty minutes left we took to the waves. The girls bodysurfed while the grown-ups scanned the horizon for the last of the migrating humpback whales, the mamas with their new calves. When we checked the time three hours had passed.

String bean, out of the water since last summer, has gotten reacquainted with her swimming skills. She's built like a swimmer, long and lean with a wide wingspan, and she can cover the length of the pool in a single breath. At seven years old, she's probably a better swimmer than I'll ever be. Peanut, five now and determined to do everything her own way, huffs along in her spastic doggie paddle style, still stubbornly refusing to try any real strokes. Luckily we have water wings, so she can alternate between floating along and thrashing around and I know she'll stay safely afloat. The girls exhaust themselves with jumping waves, making sandcastles, running free in their hot pink flip flops, swimming in the pool for hours, and each night as I cuddle with them for our daily list of three good things, they've fallen asleep on me before finishing.

Jessica has been an enormous help on this trip. After a year of single-motherhood I'd forgotten what it's like to have an extra set of hands for dinner prep, kid-bathing, dishes, laundry, general clean-up, and driving around. I was prepared for a kid-centered vacation, but I've gotten more relaxing in than expected thanks to Jessica's presence. We're a lot alike, quiet readers who prefer the sound of the ocean to the bustle of a crowed street, drama-free types who like to get the work out of the way so we can sit and chat and relax. The girls adore their aunt, and I'm enjoying watching them vie for her attention, off the hook for many mommy duties that they'd rather have her do. It's also been a great week to keep our friendship going, which has always been a separate thing from my marriage to her brother. The separation from my husband has done nothing to diminish my bond with Jessica, and this week has been a great reminder of that.

Whenever we come here, I remind the girls that they have Hawaiian blood, are tied to these islands beyond loving vacations here. The concept of ancestors seems hard for them to grasp, but they like to hear the stories, of their Chinese great-great-great grandfather Chun Afong marrying a Hawaiian Chief's granddaughter. They never met their Hawaiian-born grandmother, and while String Bean has my same almond-shaped eyes and olive-toned skin, fair-skinned and blue-eyed Peanut doesn't look like she could possibly have Hawaiian blood in her anywhere. But from the stories they have decided that they are Hawaiian princesses, and this fills them with a ridiculous amount of joy. Almost as much joy as I get out of being here with them.

Swim Girls

After a year of trying to convince String Bean that swim lessons would be fun (and getting in response only hysterical crying and begging not to go), we finally got her and Peanut into a swim class last month. I like that it’s a class for 3-5 year olds, so they can be in there together, as having Peanut at her side always makes String Bean more brave. It turned out they were both fine with the class, learned all the basics of bubble blowing and head-dunking and back-floating and dog-paddling. The challenge was the unseasonably cool weather. But my girls are troopers, and they swam out in the cold and rain. The pool is heated, but it’s outdoors, and they emerged each time with blue lips, shivering so hard they could barely walk. And then two days later, they were so excited about going swimming again that they could barely sleep. I offered to let them skip class on the coldest days, to wait for a nicer day to take a make-up class, but they never wanted to wait another moment to get in and practice.

So far this month the weather has been much nicer. They’ve moved on to the next class, with a couple of new instructors, but essentially the same focus of paddling, floating, and jumping into the pool. The girls like to hang onto the wall, waiting for their turn with the teacher, seeing who can hold her breath under water the longest. They’ve gotten good enough at it that they’re making me nervous now, as I watch four little fingers on the ledge, waiting for what seems like forever for them to come up for air.

I’m trying to think of what other classes I can stick them in together, now that I see how they comfort and push each other. I’m thinking maybe dance, so they can rehearse and perform together at home, and have another reason for wearing little costumes all the time.

Swim Girls

We had our last play group gathering at a beach-type pool nearby (Contra Loma in Antioch, for those in the Bay Area). They have a large, shallow pool, with a nice sand bank on one side, perfect for young swimmers and tots who can’s even walk yet but know how to sit on sand in shallow water and splash up a good time.

The girls were thrilled to wade and play with their play mates in chest-high water, and were equally excited to wear their life vests and water wings (not at the same time) and try out the deeper water. There were lifeguards on duty who spent most of their shift yelling at kids to stop throwing sand (not to mean that the kids there were out of control, but to point out that the mass of little swimmers kept it safe enough that the lifeguards had little else to do but scold the sand-throwers).

Hubby came with us, which means I actually got to socialize with my friends a bit (not always possible at play dates, with two girls to watch who are always running in opposite directions). My sister, now at the tail-end of her maternity leave, and her 4-month-old baby came, too, and a good time was had by all. The girls had a tough time choosing between staying in the water and camping out under the beach umbrella next to their favorite baby in the world, and we had to drag them out of there screaming for more swim time and more cousin-love time. They were good and tired after all that, so we had successful naps and early bed times. It’s a bit too far away to go on a regular basis, but that’s not stopping the kids from asking every day if we can go back.

Fun in the Sun

Well, I promised the kiddies a pool day, but the 90 degree weather broke and it wasn’t quite warm enough for soaking in the kiddie pool after all, so instead we filled a bin with water out back, and used buckets, plastic tea pots, and plastic princess cups to splash around. Or that was the idea anyway. It didn’t go quite according to plan, because there were flies outside, and the little one is still insanely terrified of all insects. So she spent the majority of the time clinging to my leg screaming about a fly that kept buzzing around. The older one, insisting it wasn’t too cold to swim, decided to sit in the bin and overflow the water, then complain that there wasn’t enough water anymore.

I got the younger one set up inside with some of her favorite books, and sat just outside the screen door where I could keep an eye on both kids at once. The older one, overly concerned, as always, that her sister might just be having a better time than she was, soon abandoned the buckets of water to go in and harass her sister. They got into some game where they took turns putting one of those little New Year’s noisemaker horns into their mouth, then blew until the horn came flying out, aiming to hit each other with each attempt. They took turns blowing the horn at each other, trails of spit flying in its wake, and laughing hysterically at the situation. So, so much for fun in the sun. Who knew the entertainment of the day would be spitting a toy dug out of the bottom of the toy bin at one another for half an hour?

Heat Wave

Today is the second day with temperatures in the mid 80s, so I broke down and blew up the kiddie pool. Then watched it quickly deflate before my eyes. Through some miracle I dug through one of our many miscellaneous item drawers and found a patch that looked like it might belong to a blow-up pool. Actually, it looked like a small square of clear tape on a backing, but it had some official writing on it that convinced me it would work better than actual tape. Before finding the patch, I was ready to break out the super glue. My husband was lobbying for duct tape, the MacGyver universal solution to every problem.

I patched the holes I could find, inflated the pool again, and watched it deflate again. But slower this time. After several rounds of this, hindered by the two-year old who kept dive-bombing into the empty pool (probably creating new holes as I patched the old ones), I decided it was deflating slowly enough to give my girls the half hour of water time that they wanted. Well, they want a never-ending stream of water time, blue lips and goose-bumped quaking limbs notwithstanding, but I'm only good for about a half hour of water-fight supervision.

In all it took about 40 minutes for the pool's fun quotient to leak all over the ground, slowly traveling over to the rose bushes (a second bonus! A drip watering system). Then, instead of the tantrum I get when pulling frigid kids from a full pool, I had bored wet children ready to head inside for lunch. What better way to finally get them out of the pool than to have it deflate under them, losing all of its water and its appeal? A perfect solution, really. I'm thinking of patenting the idea.