Day with Jackson

I got to watch Jackson today while his parents went to a workshop downtown. Makaela was very excited and we spent the entire day coloring, stamping, making fake food and got to the park for some outdoor play. Both kids were NOT happy when Heidi and Mike came to pick up Jackson.

It's time I get her an Easel

Normally this would look pretty harmless but my quilt (that is covering the futon) is now covered in marker blots from being placed down without having caps on them. Of course, by this face, she never realized what she was doing was "bad"

Hula Lessons??

Yesterday we had a very busy Sunday that ended with a farewell party for the Bennetts. I worked with Cory for five years and he has been a very inspirational colleague. Cory has already finished his doctorate and is headed back to the mainland to be a professor. His wife is also amazing. It seems as though I follow Amanda: every time she gets pregnant, I get pregnant, so we had lots of mommy stories to swap and she was the one to turn me on to the Operation Kid Comfort Quilts that have Matt's pictures on them.

The party was held on the beach which is always nice, but they had a monstrous bouncy house that Makaela was in love with.

The party organizer arranged for a hula dancer to give a farewell dance for the Bennetts.

Mia and I watched it together but just at the tail end of it, I caught Makaela watching the dancer. I didn't realize how intently she had been watching her until I saw this occur:

After seeing this, I think dance lessons are in order.

Girlfriends

It's amazing how Makaela is following in her momma's footsteps. Coming to Hawaii has changed my life irrevocably- I have met girlfriends that have become such an influential and inspirational part of my life, so it is no surprise that my daughter has done the same.

Ilima's Graduation and the dress situation

For Makaela's May Day, she and I both wore the same dresses (from Rachel's Momi Boutique), but I decided to change for the Ilima graduation. It was a bit windy and I wanted to put Mia in the matching dress, so it might have looked too silly for me, Makaela and Mia to all be matching in front of my students. It was hysterical when Tanya showed up in the same exact dress!! I actually thought about this as I was getting dressed too and I was glad I went with my gut instinct not to wear the dress. People were having a hard time determining who was who's kid considering Tanya, Makaela and Mia all had the same dress on.

When we got there, the kids were in enamored with Makaela and Mia. One of my students ran up to Makaela and totally freaked her out to the point that she started whimpering (in her defense, he was a larger boy, but she was being overly dramatic). At first Mia looked frightened at 20+ kids crowding around her stroller, but in a matter of seconds she realized she loved the attention. My student Mark, played pick-a-boo with her until he had to line up for graduation- couldn't tear him away from her...umm, I may be thinking future babysitter material.

May Day 2011

Today was Makaela's first May Day (and sadly, probably her last), but after much deliberating, I decided to take a personal day so I could attend her assembly. The place was packed! Being an intermediate school teacher, I forgot how excited parents get at little ones' assemblies- the irony in this is that I should have realized this considering I took off, but I have learned my lesson that next time, I will show up 30 mins early to get a seat. Anyway, the kids were adorable- each age group/class represented a different island of Hawaii. Makaela's class represented Kaho'olawe and they had two songs to sing. The school was very thoughtful in that they corded off an area for parents to stand when their children got up to sing- once your child was done, you vacated the area for the next group of parents. So anyway, I got to get up nice and close to take some video and you can see from the video that she was more than thrilled to see me. It didn't hurt that I showed up in the same exact dress that she was wearing :-)

Sadly, my camera flashed "memory full" as Makaela's group sang the second song, but her teacher had the kids sing the songs over again for the parents back in the classroom. Here is the second song they sang. I am utterly amazed that Makaela memorized a song in Hawaiian- I'm thinking that I need to get her on some Rosetta Stone CDs. The girl is a sponge!

After the presentation, we had a potluck lunch and wow- there was tons of food. Hawaiian hospitality at its finest. Makaela told me we had to bring pasta salad so we did (and of course she didn't eat any of it), but we had fun eating everyone else's food. Her teacher also put me in charge of a little boy who parents couldn't come and it made me realize how important these things are.

I also got to watch a little girl spill milk on herself and blame Makaela for it- it took quite a bit of will power not to "correct" the situation, especially when she told her dad (all decked out in army fatigues) about it, but he noticed that Makaela hadn't been drinking milk, so I was so glad I didn't say anything. It's crazy how petty you get over your kids.

When it was time to go, Makaela was ...well, she was distraught, but I needed to get grading done. Many of the kids were the same way and the teachers were working overtime to coax and hug the kids. However, three hours later, when I picked her up to head to Ilima's graduation, she was happy as could be.

At bedtime, we copied the Weidas and now talk about the best part of our day and tonight she said the best part of her day was when her mommy came to have lunch with her at school...again, now I see the importance of taking off to make it to these functions.

Polo

The last time I went to a polo match, Makaela was less than 2 years old, so I was thrilled when Monica suggested it We all followed each other up to the North Shore to watch the "horsies".

It was great seeing the older ones play-we had brought up a tent and the kids bounced from the

tent to the back of cars, to the chairs and back again.

The younger ones enjoyed the pack-n-plays. I gave Mia her first apple slice in a chewing sack

and she must have sat in the wagon for a good 45 minutes just chewing away as happy as could be (which also made mommy happy).

I only got to watch a few minutes of the game (and couldn't tell you who won), but I enjoyed every minute of the day. After the game, the kids ran around with Uncle Brian and exhausted themselves to the point that Makaela was asleep by the time we got on the main road.I kept thinking, "When Matt gets back we have to do this again" but then realized that polo wouldn't be in season and the next time it was, we would be long gone- so sad :-(