Dad, Dad, He's so Rad!

If the jury was ever out on this one, it certainly wasn't for long.  Now, it's official.  Mr. Forget-me-not has forever secured the deserving title of, World's Coolest Dad.  

Anyone who can turn an old tire swing into hours of mango tree swinging fun is a clear winner in my book.  I've already told him, no matter where we move from here on out, that the tire swing is getting packed along with us.  No kidding, it's that fun!  Someday our grandchildren will enjoy this island treasure. 

Not that I'm jealous or anything, but children, if you can read this, I'd really appreciate your consideration as the other Cool Parent in your lives.   You may not believe me, because I know it is a long shot, but my life is all about fun: F.U.N., fun, fun, fun.   

Come on now, you can't tell me that it isn't fun to open up your dresser drawer and discover folded, clean undies? Or how about the culinary fun of preparing a dinner that you'll eat without complaining if the menu doesn't include the word "stick."  That's about be as good as a trip to Disneyland.  Homework helper, hey, there's another really cool chink in my chain.  Nothing says fun like times tables and double digit subtraction.  It has Cool written all over it. 

Alright, alright, so Dad beats me out as, Captain Fun.  I'll admit defeat, if I must.  But don't say I didn't try.  (Homemade playdough made from KoolAid for the first three years of all your little people lives should win me a few points, right?)

Mr. Forget-me-not, when it comes to being a Dad, you rock.  For real.  We all scored.  Big time.

Always on the grow, 

 

October in pictures

Here's the snapshot of our month:

Columbine fancies herself an equestrian Justice of the Peace, performing pony nuptials in the bedroom.  In sickness and in health, till horse racing doth we part.  White stallion, you may now kiss the purple unicorn bride.

Just when we thought it wasn't possible for our backyard to get any better, Daddy, built a tire swing and, Bube, gave us the hanging pole that used to hang from her mango tree.  It now swing, with our own tropical monkeys, from our mango tree. 

Enterprenuial spirit at it's best, Hibiscus, turns an avacado selling profit.

What is it about a little boy's innate ability to know just what button to push to get the loudest squeal out of his sisters?  Beach walks, boring.  Throwing sand at the girls while on a beach walk, soo totally awesome.  Wooly, you are a boy through and through.  

Columbine's darling ballet recital was so precious.  Fancy that, the recital costume doubled as a Halloween costume.  Love it!

Sugar-fest 2010 is over and done.  Dutiful documentation, if I must, and only to prove that the stupid holiday was celebrated by my candy loving children. Odd, I know, but Halloween ranks pretty low on my list of favorite holidays.  Although, yes, I'll admit, the kids are adorable in their costumes. 

Always on the grow,

Caught

Red Flour Handed.  And not a moment too soon.  Wooly was all smiles for this Before-Shot.  It's the After-Shot that would have better told this story of a thousand words.  I foolishly grabbed the camera to take this picture, when I still thought it was kind of cute, kind of funny, that he'd managed to unsnap the safety lids on the flour buckets.  Childproof, my flour covered fanny. 

'Oh, cute,' I thought as I took a picture and then turned by back for ten mistaken seconds, the time it took me to walk down the hallway and put away the camera.  In that blink of time, Wooly Boy managed to recruit, Columbine, his trusty accomplice, to assist him in another wicked plan.  Who better than the angelically sweet older sister who knows how to kick it up a notch and look completely innocent while committing the crime?  Or perhaps it was that she turned the corner, saw how much fun, Wooly, was having--wriggling his fingers through the forbidden white fluff--and didn't wait for his invitation?  I'll never know, since I was in the hallway for those critical 10 seconds, while Mission Kitchen Snowstorm plans were executed.  When I returned, hello, call in the Snow Plow. 

I never did determine the real Master Mind behind what started as an innocent tousle of the flour bucket and ended in a full blown white out.   Neither, Wooly or Columbine, would confess--a true indication of their perfect alliance.  Parental wisdom said I shouldn't encourage this type of behavior, but I was tempted to snap one more picture of the two of them, ankle deep in an overturned flour bucket.  The deliciously guilty smirk on their obligingly repentant faces would have made for a better Kodak moment.

Tell me, is November too early to start using the "Santa only brings toys to good little boys and girls" line?  Because I am planning on getting a lot of mileage out of that one this year.   Thanks to, Wooly and Columbine, we've had our first (and only) winter snowstorm for the year.  Right in our very own kitchen!  The weather in the tropics, it's crazy, I tell you, just crazy!  And nothing says Santa quite like snow. 

Ho, Ho, Ho, then little kiddies, the Jolly Fat Man is comin' to town.  And...He's.  Watching.  You.

Always on the grow,

#2 Stardard

The stages of early literacy are magical to me.  Most of us have long forgotten this season of our childhood, when our pencils have plenty of led left in their long, tall, o-rangy ominous sticks--but nothing other than nubby, stubby where the pink eraser on the other end used to be.  Plenty of led with erasers rubbed down to wrinkled nothingness.

Watching my children scribble and doodle throughout each day, I understand how this happens.  They write effortlessly, unimpeded by margins and edges, yet with such exerted concentration.

Life feels like that, although most of us in our grown-up maturity (perceived or actual) don't recognize it as such.  The truth is:  Erasers are essential.  For most of us--like my children's #2 pencil collection with gnawed dental records chewed into the sides--have plenty of led left for this lifetime.  Stories yet to live and plenty of lead left to write them.  Unless, of course, your life resembles mine.  Then, at times, it's painful to realized the sheer inadequacy and necessity of the eraser.  The balance is all wrong!  It should be 5 inches of eraser to one tiny nub of led.

Today while we finished the afternoon homework party (lie), I offered, Columbine, the choice between two pencils, hoping the selection would offer an incitement to finish strong.  In one hand, I held up an old, gnawed up, eraser-less favorite.  In the other, an equally gnawed up pencil, only this one had a bright, new, pink eraser top plugged over the old stump.  To my great surprise, despite the shiny allure of a pencil with a new eraser head, she picked the old one.  Proving, once again, the wisdom of youth.

Live life.  Eraser or not.  Mistakes are to be expected.  Anyone knows that!  Having an eraser, makes no difference.  Grab another sheet of paper if you really need a fresh start from old scribbles.  Life is too short to worry about erasing the past.  Just go for it.  Grab another page, crumple the old one and toss it aside.  Live.  Love.  Keep on writing.

Sounds a bit too bold, even for me, because I really want (need) an eraser.  But what are children good for, than to show us how to live genuinely, fearlessly, with bold, passionate creativity?  Heaven knows, I need their example.  The pencils for my lifetime still have plenty of led, more than I'll ever need probably.  Certainly more than anyone wants to listen to me use.  But the erasers, those babies are long gone.  And there in, lyes the problem. Or, according to, Columbine, is no problem at all. 

Always on the grow, 

Gratitude the Attitude

My girls are split this year between two separate schools.  One is on our side of the island, requiring a slightly painful, 20 minute, door-to-curbside-return-home, Drop Off Deadline, and the other, is a haul across the island.  It's a miracle whenever I make it there on time.  Next year we will simplify, plugging them both into the same school, sharing one drop-off schedule.  Hallelujah.  (Insert refrain here: What was I thinking?) 

Until then, I run a mostly-friendly shuttle service around town, trying my best to remember that education is worth the sacrifice.  My cheery disposition was aided today by a bumper sticker that I read on the backside of a rusted out AstroVan.  Surf rack loaded, windows down, with some dude swinging to a sweet local beat.  Where else can you get daily ukulele hits on the radio?  Hawaii rocks.  Aloha to you to, Buddy. 

The bumper sticker read:

Relax, Man,
This ain't the Mainland.



Right next to this beauty:


Lower the Latitude,
Better the Attitude.

What with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I've tried to steer family dinner conversations around the topic of gratitude.  If only I were more crafty, I would have copied the Thankful Tree idea that I saw on this blog (notice the impressive matchy-match color coordinated leaves).  Too cute, too much, can't do it.

Or better yet, I could have copied this truly amazing idea, snapping pictures all month long about my daily moments of gratitude.  (Seriously, check out the 365 project.  It's amazing!)  Actually, this idea I might try, someday, modifying it for the less-ambitious, less-grateful type, say, once a week.  I could call it the Almost-as-Grateful-365 Project.  Maybe just a 'Thankful Thursday' picture?  Even that sounds too scheduled, too committed.  But, the gratitude ideas are swirling, beware.

My approach to celebrating this Season of Thanksgiving was more a desperate afterthought than anything with impressive planning or detail.  Our idea seemed just fine until I stacked it against amazing photography or crafty thankful trees.  Nevertheless, it is serving the purpose of cultivating an attitude of gratitude in my home. 

Every night over dinner, I bust out a generically white 3x5 card, punch a hole in it, and then tie a knot with a leftover roll of birthday blue curly string.  In turn, we recount something that we're grateful for that day.  I'll scribble them onto the card, then hang it from the string around the dining room table light.  Not classy or crafty, but hey, it's there.  I'd take a picture of our growing collection of dangling cards (it'd certainly add to the effect, if I did, considering two of the five chandelier light-bulbs are burned out, only to humor my cheap, white trash, white index card effect,) but I'm too lazy (not grateful enough for a camera?) to get up and do it.  No matter, the real point is that the kids enjoy and look forward to the gratitude moment at dinner.  They've all said such adorable, heartfelt things.

But, I'll be honest, the need for an attitude activity, was more for me than my children.  And not a moment too soon, since my attitude, my crusty, cranky heart needed softening.  Big Time. 

What better than a month of thanks to help with that little (read: big) problem?  October: It wasn't my best month.  No details, no stories, yet.  (Although, The Soccer Field Freak-Out of 2010, will certainly be a good one to tell, someday.  Only after enough time has lapsed to blur my neurotic embarrassment and help morph it into something funny.  Hasn't happened yet, not sure it will.  Ever.  I almost, accidentally, bumped into the soccer coach at the grocery store last week.  Took cover in the tampon isle until the coast was clear.  Who cares if the jug of milk in my cart warmed to room temperature while I waited him out?  Seriously, it was that embarrassing.)

So, here's to being thankful that I live on such a beautiful island!  Think sea-level, people.  With a latitude like that, barring PMS and anger management issues on soccer fields, I should have a great attitude.  Or at least that's what I'm striving for this month.

What are you doing to cultivate an attitude of gratitude?  I want to know.

"We can lift ourselves, and others as well, when we refuse to remain in the realm of negative thought and cultivate within our hearts an attitude of gratitude. If ingratitude be numbered among the serious sins, then gratitude takes its place among the noblest of virtues."  Thomas S. Monson

Always on the grow,

Blessed are the pure in heart

My eight year old, Hibiscus, is in a transition year.  We are enjoying the season between her young childhood and preadolescent mysteries.  Still so sweet and innocent, she offers such a pure example.   

Like other changes I have begun to notice, she for the first time, is now reading to learning, instead of learning to read.  This mental transition welcomes an awareness of literary depth that was out of reach in the concentration and newness of early childhood phonics and vocabulary acquisition.  Take clichés, for example, she's throwing them out (some fitting, others, not so much) just to try them on for size.  (Get it, try them on for size.  Okay, not so funny, sorry.)  It's hilarious.  As is her love of good joke books and all things, Shel Silverstein.  His brilliant poems are being read anew, this time with the chuckles of understanding after each perfectly timed punchline.

So it was, that as we re-read a familiar fable the other night, I asked her what she thought about this old standard:  Don't judge a book by it's cover. 


"Do you ever find that you look at someone's appearance on the outside, and think that because they look a certain way, that they must be a certain way on the inside?  You judge them by their outward appearance without looking beyond that to who they are on the inside?"  She appeared stumped and silent from both questions. 

After some thoughtful consideration, she responded, in true fashion to the lingering innocence in her growing, but still childlike, soul.

"No.  Not at all, Mom," she said.

I hope that is always the case, Hibiscus, I really do.

Always on the grow,

Fairy Wishes

A few Decembers ago, before our winters became the balmy island weather that we enjoy now, Mr. Forget-me-not's business travels included me and a week of childless splendor to the Big Apple.  I'm not sure how much of my instant infatuation with, New York City, was a result of being without my children and their diaper bag accouterments, or if it was the dazzle of all those city lights.  Either way, I fell head over heels with my man in Manhattan.  No kids and the buzz of a city that never sleeps, it can make a girl dizzy with love, I tell you, just dizzy.  Yes, it was total urban awesomeness.  Sure, sure, I missed my kids back home on the west coast, at least by the very end of the week.

While, Mr. Forget-me-not, punched the clock at some work related conference-shmonference, I toured the city alone.  Bliss!  One of my quests was to find this adorably quaint children's bookstore.  From what I had read in my Don't-mug-me-and-yes-I'm-a-tourist Guide Books, the bookstore was the source of inspiration for the Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, movie, You've Got Mail.  Loved that movie.  Loved the bookstore even more. 

Attached to the end of the store was yet another stroke of genius: a designer cupcake counter.  Because it's NYC and the most adorable children's bookstore ever, isn't quite over the top until you add gourmet cupcakes as the after-book party spot.  In another lifetime, I'm going to open up such a shop and live out my days with cheery children's picture books, licking my fingertips from the endless array of butter-cream frosting.  It would be a happy life.     

In one corner of the bookstore, from the ceiling shared with bulby urbanesque lighting, hung delightfully whimsical fairies.  The image came to mind again today when, Columbine, said, "I wish I had a Book Report Fairy."  This was her contribution to the conversation that, Hibiscus, began a few moment before, wishing that she had a Homework Fairy.

"Yeah," I offered my condolenses, "and I wish I had a Laundry Fairy."

Until then, I thought I'd write to share the memory of a great bookstore, fanciful "business trip" vacations, and a little snippet about what we are reading currently.

Hibiscus: 
Made it midway through a few books in, The Little House on the Prairie, series, before turning her attention more devotedly to, The Harry Potter, series.  Sorry, Laura Ingalls Wilder, it's a real shame, but you just can't compete with, Harry.  That kid is straight up, money making, book selling, movie rights, magic.  How do I come up with a story like that?  Hibiscus, should have Book 4 read before the end of the weekend.

Columbine:
What she is reading is entirely different than the books she is being read to.  (Thank you, Jim Trelease.)  Columbine is reading, The Bob Books.  I'd estimate with one more month, that girl will have cracked the code, opening herself up to a whole new world of readers.  So exciting!

What she is being read to is, Roald Dahls, James and the Giant Peach.  Like Hibiscus, her reading comes with the incentive that once she's finished the text, we can host another Family Movie Night to watch the film.  The first Harry Potter movie was last weekend's reward. 

Columbine's wishful thinking about book report fairies stems from her anxiety about an upcoming mini-book report for her Jr.Kindergarten class.  More to come on that.  We're only on page 68.

Wooly:  Toot!  Toot!  Chugga-chugga.  Every time we walk through the library entrance, that kid makes a B-line, straight to the Thomas the Train books.  Try as I may to steer him towards something else, anything else, he is content to read and re-read every single one.  Help me.

Moi:  Not much reading, or writing, I'm afraid to say.  Marathon training is sucking up all my time.  I should have peeled the stack of books off my headboard weeks ago, but left them there to linger, which only makes me feel more desperate for the day that I'll have enough energy to actually crack them open.  A few more weeks, post-marathon insanity, and I've got big plans with several juicy, fat reads.   Can't wait!  If, Mr. Forget-me-not were the calculating type, he'd plant a few dusty cookbooks into the mix.  Like reading and writing, meal planning and preparation have also taken a backseat to the recent marathon running obsessions.  Stupid race.  Soon, soon it will be over.  And then I will read, read, read, and maybe (hopefully) write, and, okay-if-I-have-to, cook.  Maybe.

Until then, here's to wishing for Fairies: the homework, laundry and book report kind.

Always on the grow,

I'm in! Who's with me?

This week, Mr. Forget-me-not, is gallivanting the globe (again).  After I wrestle the kids down for the day, without him around, my evenings are free to do nothing more than toss the half-eaten bowls of cereal in the trash (What? Who said Wheaties couldn't be the Dinner for Champions, too?) and then reacquaint myself with all sorts of personal projects, not to mention this ever-neglected blog hobby.  There are certain perks of having a husband who travels a lot, namely: less laundry (that is until the dirty luggage arrives back home), paper plates, quiet evenings, personal projects, and reading in bed by the glow of my obnoxiously bright book light.  The super-shiny one that, Mr. Forget-me-not, detests. Ahh...the joys of the simple life. 

Sure, sure, the traveling salesman schedule isn't all First Class perks and privileges.  From what I've been told, it's very difficult to be away from your kids (excuse me?), eating out all the time (pullease), living in hotels (Hello, free cable and Room Service?), in and out of airports (There's a Starbucks and a People Magazine in every airport in the World...how hard could it be?).  Although his hardship is made much easier recently, thanks to the boatload of miles he's racked up this year, bumping him into the social elite world of First Class Traveler. 

Which is probably why he knows better than to pull the sympathy card.  He doesn't, by the way, Poor Guy, because he's smart like that.  Given the chance, I'd love to see just how well I could manage to sleep, thank you very much, on any Red Eye flight, kickin' it on an Easy Boy leather recliner in the sky. 

Anyhow, today we faced another Sunday without Daddy around to help run blocker on the pew.  Wooly's Houdini moves only escaped me twice, once under the pew, once down the isle.  It's such a Sabbath highlight, just making it through the 3 hour church block. 

No wonder then that when I woke up this morning to prep for my three-kid-circus, I just didn't have it in me.   Although tempted to fake a cough and play hookie, I'm proud to say, in the end, I managed to rope everyone along for the wild Sunday Ride.  Sometimes I wonder, even with the Daddy reinforcements, how I manage to keep on coming back for more?  3 hours.  Every.  Sunday.  Week after week after week.  If that's not a testimony (or proof of really disturbing masochistic tendencies), then I don't know what is. 

Then it came to me!  The mental image of the picture I snapped awhile back through my windshield, as we drove through the stoplight in famous, Haleiwa Town.  There's the answer!

How about we join the Once A Month Church?  Catchy name, don't you think?  What's not to like about a church that meets on one of the most beautiful beaches on O'ahu, you guessed it, only once a month. 

Who's with me?  I'm in. 

 Always on the grow,

BOGO

Tribute must be paid to my children.  Bless them!  Over the years, they've been forced to endure their Mother's determined Clearance Rack Sweeps, crazed Thrift Store Hunts, and generally irritating Sale Finding frolic.  They may not like the frequent shopping cart torture, but they don't exactly have a choice in the matter.  Someday they will thank me for teaching them the fine, fine art of bargain hunting.  Like all important skills that must be passed down from Mother to Child, cultivating an eye for a bargain ranks up there with good manners, bed making, and double-digit subtraction.

And so, when, Columbine, made a clever announcement tonight, I felt both amused and quite proud.  It brought a smug smile to my face to hear her say, "Mommy, wouldn't it be great if there were Buy One Get One-Six."

"Like buy one thing and get six for free?" I clarified.  Exactly.  That's exactly what she meant.

We fantasized together for a moment, rattling off the list of things we'd like to buy just one, in order to qualify for the six freebies.  No surprise, shave-ice made it on the short list.  As did pet kittens and black Labradors.  Please, no.  Hibiscus got in on our game, suggesting a few more practical items of purchase: houses, snorkel masks, and watercolor pencils.

While it may be said that less is more, after playing our impromptu Buy One-Get Six Game, more is definitely more.  It's probably not something that would help our already overindulged world, but if we were talking shave ice (minus the six free kittens and Labrador puppies) I'd be game.

Always on the grow,