Visiting with Uncle Howard, Glenn and Aunty Ann

Today we headed out to Mililani again, back to Creations Unlimited, where I got overwhelmed the last time. At least I know what I want now and just have to pick it out. It took longer than I expected because I didn’t know that the die cut process can only be done to 2 or 3 at a time. So, the lady took forever cutting 160 boxes for me. My dad as well as the babies were getting impatient. We went to my Uncle Howard and Aunty Ann’s house in Pearl City afterwards and visited a little while. Rowan was fussy almost the whole time. Elijah kept himself busy with whatever toys I had and whatever stuff was nearby he could look at. He was also interested in the latest “Family Circle” magazine. It was good to see them again, I did see my Uncle and Aunty and my sister’s wedding but it has been probably about 15 or 16 years since I saw my cousin Glenn. And he hasn’t aged at all, whereas I have many many white hairs added to my head. We gave them some of my dad’s bananas since we are overflowing with them and in turn, they gave us some of their bananas because they are overflowing as well. We thought we would be able to get rid of some, but we just got more in the process! So, my dad gave some away to the neighbors. If anyone wants bananas, you know who to call.

When we got home, I thought Elijah felt a little warm so I took his temperature and it was 103.2! It freaked me out! So I gave him some Tylenol and gave him a cold bath, which to my surprise he didn’t mind at all. Of course, I started with a warm bath and kept adding cold water to it until it was cold. That did bring his temp down to 101.6 after an hour or so, so luckily I didn’t have to take him in to the hospital. He hasn’t been fussy or anything, and actually, he’s been quite observant and less tantrum-y. Go figure! He was very tired from all the travelling today, so he went to bed no problem. Rowan’s temperature is still high, but only 100.3, so he’s doing pretty good keeping it at bay. Taking rectal temperatures are so much fun…

Elijah got up at around midnight crying and I went in to check on him and changed his diaper. It was funny because Rowan heard me and got up. He was very sleepy and his eyes were closed, but he had a big smile on his face and was skooching himself closer towards me. You could tell he was so excited to have a visitor in the middle of the night, but was too tired that he fell asleep trying to come over to me. It was really cute. Elijah fell asleep again once I changed his diaper and his body felt much, much cooler than before.

I stayed up way too late working on the party favors. When my mom came home, she said that the box was too small! I remember the cookies being smaller than they are I guess, so we’ll see after this weekend. I sure hope they fit!!

Watching the pigeons at the Zoo

Today my mom was off of work so we went to the Honolulu Zoo. It was kind of a sad Zoo, a lot of things were closed or dirty, or you couldn’t see the animals. We walked all around and enjoyed the petting zoo and feeding the birds. We actually weren’t supposed to feed the birds, but there wasn’t a sign. My mom gave this boy a piece of bread to feed too and this zoo police guy came up to him and scolded him. Oops!

Towards the end the boys were getting kind of fussy, so they dropped me off at home with them and then my mom and dad went back out to get stuff on sale from Longs. We have to buy a lot of drinks for the party! The boys had a hard time getting to sleep, I don’t know why. Probably from the fever/sickness… We went out to dinner kind of late because I wanted them to get a little sleep, but they ended up staying up and playing/fussing so long, that they only got like a 30 minute nap. When I got them up for dinner, they were so tired that all night they were kind of zoning in and out. They were pretty good though. Elijah did his cute thing where if you bring your head close to his, he will touch your head with his and smile. It’s really cute, I taught both of them to do that. They don’t do it all that time, but usually when you put your head close, they just look at you. I’m trying to teach them the traditional Maori way of greeting where you touch heads and press noses.

Here is Elijah the piano genius! He really likes to sit there and play the piano, going between pounding on the keys and gingerly playing one key. Then he turns around to see what Rowan is doing. This particular composition is called “I miss my cats”.

Kevin, pretending to be awake

Rowan was better today, still kind of clingy, but at least his fever’s down. He’s so cute, everytime someone is near him, he holds out his arms to tell you that he wants a hug! When he’s tired, he’ll put his head on your shoulder. During one of his naps, I lied down with him because he just didn’t stop crying. He was so happy that I was there that he couldn’t sleep. He would lie next to me and smile really big and laugh, then he would have too much energy in him he would have to crawl around the room and then come back and try to sleep again. But he would be too smiley again. So I finally left him and he was not happy, but fell asleep quickly after that. Elijah falls asleep really well and has hardly any problems. He likes to have his green blanket nearby and then starts to make suckling noises.

My mom and dad went to this big sale in the morning. It was at a place called Webco(?) and they had their annual clearance sale. I asked my Aunty about it and she said that parking is terrible and the lines are long. There isn’t anything that I need so I didn’t want to go. I especially didn’t want the babies to go either. So, I stayed at home while my mom and dad went. Sure enough, they found parking ok and found $15 worth of stuff to buy but the lines were soooo long that they said “forget it” and came back home. In the evening, I went over to my cousin’s house, Jennifer and Kevin, and help them with their invitations for their wedding. I haven’t been to her house either, so it was nice to finally see it. My first task was to do all the computer work since she still needed her RSVPs done and didn’t know how. I learned how to insert “text boxes” in MS Word and you can change the direction of the text. It did a weird “snap to grid” thing that I couldn’t turn off so that was a bummer, but I still got the job done. It took forever though. My next task was to put tape on the invitations and I couldn’t stop until I got all of them done. It was pretty fun hanging out with the family since I don’t get to see them too often. Kevin was tired from working that day and he was hilarious because he would fall asleep for a few minutes, wake back up, and join in the conversation like he never left it. We were wondering if maybe he didn’t know he fell asleep. He did this several times and we kept laughing. Jenny kept telling him to go to sleep and his answer was “I’m not tired yet”. I left at around 12:15am, and had a nice drive home, but now I’m tired!

One good thing happened today was that I finally figured out what I want for the boys’ party favors! Since my favorite cookie is Donna’s almond cookie (from Big Island), I’m going to have those in a chinese take out box. It’ll be a blue box with darker blue turtles (honu) stamped on it. Since we’re going to the big island anyways, we can pick some up. YAY! Now I gotta go back to Mililani to pick up all the supplies.

We went to Mililani today to a store called “Creations Unlimited” to get ideas for the party favors. I don’t know what I want. The store was just packed with ideas and it was overwhelming. There were so many things that I liked and so many ideas to think about. One thing that stood out was the chinese take out box, but the mochi that I was planning to get wouldn’t fit very well. What I didn’t think about was that the thing inside would determine what type of box you would have and/or the box would determine what you should get. Ugh, choices. The people weren’t very helpful either. Their attitude was “whatever is good”. I guess they don’t want to say if something is good or bad so that they’re not responsible or something. Anyways, I left there more confused than when I got there, which sucked, but at least I know what’s out there. I’m sure I will be back.

After that, we visited with my Uncle and Aunty who live nearby. They babysit their granddaughter, so we got to see her too. She was a really tall baby, almost as big as Rowan and Elijah! It was nice to visit them!

When we got home, I noticed that Rowan felt warm so I wanted to take his temperature. My dad handed me this old thermometer, you know, the kind with mercury in it and takes forever to get the temp? Well, I certainly couldn’t put it in his mouth and didn’t really want to put it in his butt. So, I stuck it under his arm and waited to see what happened. He had a 100.5 temperature, as best as I could get it. I was super worried so my dad called people from his work place who was either a nurse or a person with kids. We got a hold of Dana and she said not to worry and that give Tylenol if it gets over 100.5 and they only worry if it’s 102 or higher. But after feeding him, he had a huge throw up (lots of mango everywhere) and he was just really irritable. I decided to take him to the clinic just for my piece of mind. The doctor was really nice and Rowan was really calm and subdued. She gave him a look over (he was 21 lbs) and thought he would have an ear infection but he didn’t. Everything looked pretty good and she said he’s probably just coming down with something. The protocol is if his temp is over 100.5, then give him Tylenol. If it gets over 102, then give him a cool bath and check again after an hour or so. If it stays high, then go to the hospital or clinic. If it goes down, then you’re ok. BTW, Rowan was 21 lbs! It was weird filling out the forms and telling them that we don’t have insurance. This is the first time in a long time that I’m actually uninsured. Well, technically, if we needed it, Michael has his COBRA coverage, but it costs $600, so if the bills are less than that, then it’s not worth it. Anyways, he seemed to be ok through the night, I sure hope he gets better, poor fella!

Walking to the Farmer’s Market

Today’s big outing was to go to the other Kailua Farmer’s Market that is held at Longs Drugs parking lot. This one is 3 hours long (5-8pm) on Thursdays and is much more lively and leisurely (and bigger) than the other one we went to last week. I liked this one much better because it had more variety of stuff than the other one, and there’s even a couple of places that make plate dinners that smelled good. We walked over, instead of driving and it was very nice weather. Not too humid and a very nice breeze. I bought a bag of Waimanalo radishes for 50 cents! I was shocked and couldn’t help myself. My dad also bought some tomatoes, green beans and soy beans (edamame). I was going to buy some cookies from this guy but I didn’t have enough cash and I figured it wasn’t meant to be. Just as well, it would just attach itself to my waist or butt or both. After that, we went to Safeway to pick up even more groceries and then we headed back home. The boys were in a really good mood and they were smiling and screaming excitedly to me and I did it back to them. Rowan especially likes that. Elijah seems to be more moody the last couple of days. He screams really loudly when he disapproves of something. Usually it’s if I pick up Rowan first for something or if I walk away without taking him. He just will yell really loud and then stop. On our way back, we stopped at our neighbor’s house, the Stewarts. I grew up with them and played with them a lot, climbing their plumeria tree. The youngest daughter (the one we played with most), Jean, has twins as well, boy/girl twins and they are 4 years old. They all came out to see the boys. Annie came out as well and all the other kids. The twins really liked the boys, they kept rubbing Rowan and Elijah’s head really hard (petting them?). It was kind of funny, they didn’t mind it too much.

Today marks the first day that I did all cloth diapers that I launder myself. :) I did cloth in Seattle, but had a diaper service. It’s not that much more work. You should see the piles of garbage the diapers have added, it’s awful. And on top of that, Hawaii doesn’t have a very advanced recycling program so nobody recycles. It’s sad.

The new food for today was sweet potatoes (from a jar). The boys loved it! I found the organic baby food at Safeway on sale for .50.

I am typing this from Kinkos because I had to fax something to Michael for our insurance and I’m just waiting for him to verify that he got it. It’s midnight!

Playing the piano at Tammy’s house

Today I was super busy with trying to wire money to Michael. It’s so complicated with all the bank stuff and numbers that I need. I finally got everything together and then there was a problem with the woman faxing the document to me. She did it 4 times and it didn’t work, so finally I had her send it to my hotmail account and it worked fine. Geez!

Our outing today was to visit our friend Tammy in Kaneohe. She is the daughter of one of my mom’s good friends that they’ve known each other a long time. She also has fraternal twin boys and they just turned 3. Unfortunately, one of them was sick so we didn’t see much of him. We had a nice lunch, she has a gorgeous house right on the water and most of my mom’s friends were there too. They talked a lot about the Korean soap opera stars and the latest gossip. The boys were very well behaved up until the end when they got tired and hungry, poor things. The really liked playing their toy piano, Elijah has a very keen interest in B-flat. Instead of slapping all the keys very hard (Rowan), he will put his hand on the keyboard, extend a finger, and play B-flat over and over. I’ll have to come back when the weather is better to take the boys swimming and when Ian is over his ear infection. Also, my dad reported that Elijah crawled on his knees for the first time! I wasn’t there to witness it and he hasn’t repeated it yet. I can’t wait to see him crawl! He really has gotten good at going from sitting to on his stomach, back up to sitting. Rowan can’t do that yet, but he’s getting really fast at commando crawling. He can go from sitting to crawling, but can’t go back up to sitting.

Today’s new food is carrots (from a jar). The boys loved it, and I finally broke down and bought some. It’s the organic kind that has only the vegetable and water, no other ingredients. I think they’re getting tired of poi and mangos!

Visiting with Uncle Paul and Aunty Brenda

Today we went to “The Only Show in Town”, an antique store in Kahuku that is owned by family friends. It’s quite a long drive up and the boys did pretty well. We went up there because they have the shop open 7 days a week and will not make it to the boys’ birthday party. The shop is pretty interesting to look in too. The boys did great, but an antique store is not a place for a baby! Rowan wanted to grab and pull everything, and we made it out of there without breaking anything. One of their specialties is glass fishing floats and they had tons of them! There were a couple of close calls, but I was very careful. We only stayed for a little while, then we left since the boys were getting fussy.

When we were at home, I reluctantly did the dishes. If you read the previous post, there was a roach in the sink from last night. Since my mom flooded the sink with water, it reminded me of the scene from Star Wars when they were in the trash compactor and there were all these creatures swimming around in there. It turns out that there was a plate covering the sink hole and that’s why the water wasn’t draining. I lifted up the plate and the dang roach was still alive! Ugh, gross! I am so not used to roaches, I haven’t seen one in a looooong time. Anyways, the soap and stuff killed it, but I refused to put it in the trash can. I left that job for some poor sap.

I was so tired today, the driving just did me in. I tried to nap, but constantly got interrupted.