Summer Wrap Up

"Kids, it’s bedtime. Go brush your teeth and go potty!"
Zana, “OK Mom.”
Zeth, “I don’t need to go shi-shi.”
Me, “I don’t believe you. You need to try anyway.”
Zeth, “Mom, that hurts my feelings you said that.”
Me, …?... giggling inwardly wondering since when do you know how to pull the ‘hurt feelings’ retort, kid? Being potty trained isn’t an absolute assurance of a dry bed in the morning with this little guy.

Making smoothies is a regular event in our home. Zeth requests chocolate-peanut butter smoothies almost every day even though he doesn’t normally end up getting one. Last Sunday morning Zeth said he wanted to make his own. OK, what do you want to put in it? “Peanut butter, ketchup, syrup, Cheetos and paper” was his sincere reply. I helped him make his smoothie with chocolate milk, peanut butter, banana, carrots & ice. He was in heaven, even without the paper, ketchup, syrup & chips.

We had a fun end of summer weekend with our 4-family inner circle of friends at a beach house in Punaluu.

Our Ward Camp was so early in the year (in March during the Spring
break) that the kids (OK, some of the really big kids too apparently)
felt like we hadn’t done anything really memorable during the summer
vacation. Enter Auntie Marie and her beach house connection. It was a really small, well-kept house but with a bunk bed, a bunch of cots and mats we managed to sleep all 4 families.

Outside, there was plenty of space for the kids to paddle (with only one broken oar and a bunch of improvisation) and play. Inside there was food, music, more food, cards, board games and no TV! This is the kind of bonding that makes unrelated friends feel like family.

Zeth is used to being outnumbered by the girls. Poor (lucky) guy.


I enrolled the kids in swim lessons and may I say, what a difference a week makes! After just two classes, the first week, we went to the community pool on Saturday morning, as we often do, where Zeth transformed from clinging on to me and the wall in apprehensive water tolerance to repeatedly jumping off the edge to me and dunking under longer than usual. When he touched the 4’ bottom the first time he came up all excited like he’d struck gold. Last week his teacher was sick and they had to postpone his class to a later date. He was in sobs & tears for a full hour upon receiving the news. With all my years of swim team experience, I still could not get him to try the stuff he’s learning from his swim instructors who are complete strangers. He’s just bouncing, bobbing and gliding through the water now and Zana is getting stronger with her stroke work in her swim group. I’m once again grateful for the village of helpers in raising our kids.

Zana started using an alarm clock recently. She’s in 4th grade now and it was time she started getting out of bed of her own volition more often. The first week she didn’t do so well. Actually she never heard the alarm bellowing next to her head at all but I believe most of the neighborhood did. I’d let it ring for 10-minutes before going in and silencing it. A few days of practice and just having her listen to what it sounds like while she was awake so her brain will register the noise and associate it with waking up, worked. The most interesting thing has happened as a result, she’s now waking up before her alarm and getting up on her own. Suddenly she is turning into a real natural morning person.

Zeth is decidedly still a night owl and is a tough nut to get going in the morning. Evidence of this is their first day of school photos where Zana is bright eyed and ready to go while Zeth was literally sleepwalking out the door to his first day of the senior class at preschool on 8/1.






I have committed myself to running my second marathon this December. Last year’s marathon was totally unofficial so it was free which was great but it was also just a small group of us, 14 runners at the start to be exact. Only seven of us ran the full 26.2, the other 7 ran the half and stopped at the turnaround point at Waimea Bay. By mile six my running partner was feeling stronger than me and I was running on my own without a whole lot of moral support outside of my wonderful family waiting for me every 3-miles in the truck with water, snacks and muscle cream if I needed it. Without them cheering me on every third mile I don’t know if I could have finished the run. So with that in mind, I want my next marathon experience to be the full sha-bang: thousands of athletes pushing forward, crowds cheering, adrenaline pumping and a dollup of that enigmatic Aloha spirit on top. I’m running the Honolulu Marathon on 12-11-11.