I am just now coming up for air enough to chronicle the past week. And I’m not sure I can do it justice because I have a sore throat and I really should be in bed. But if I wait too much longer the details will fade and I’ll forget the really funny parts of the gauntlet we’ve just run. I think I’ll do this one in bullets…

• Friday night – Ben threw up on his way to bath. That’s when we knew it was going to be an interesting night.
• Saturday – after several ups last night, Ben seemed in good spirits. We went about the day, even hit the air show and carnival at night. Ben ate a few bites of pizza and had shave ice. Seemed like we’d survived.
• Sunday – went out for crepes – nice morning. Then took a little drive around, went to Byodo In temple to walk the grounds, ring the huge gong, enjoy the peace and quiet. On our way home, Ben drank a bunch of water then seconds later shot a HUGE projectile vomit right toward me. Sam and I made the mistake of laughing. Dave did not think it was funny. There was nothing we could do but boogie home quickly. We were only 10 min away. I feared I’d been exposed – GI bugs don’t usually pass this way but with that load of microbes shooting out just as I laughed…all bets were off. I figured I’d get it. Then I got some in my eye from hosing out his stuff. It sprayed. YUCK.
• Sunday afternoon – as I worked on the beginning layout of a 500+ page report for the NYS DOH and CDC I began to feel really logey. I kept working furiously. By 6pm I was puking. But I kept cleaning up the house, doing folding, etc. just in case I really went down for the count. Oh yes…and would I ever.
• Sunday night was spent on the toilet, every 60-90 min. Ben was fine, but Sam was puking, too. TMI I know but I had a bowl with me while on the toilet. It was bad. I would clean Sam up between races to the bathroom. I threw towels down on the hallway carpet to catch whatever wouldn’t make it. By 1am my heart was racing from dehydration. I remembered that from a hospital trip when I was pregnant with Sam. So I began to hydrate despite the risk of triggering more bouts. Glad I did…I was really really weak by then. Dave was feeling gross but still not sick.
• Monday was a lost day. I couldn’t walk, had a fever, felt horrendous. Sam felt off but not quite as bad.
• Tuesday – Thursday are also lost days. They were spent furiously wrapping up the huge report (editing, layout, redoing graphics, printing to PDF, bookmarking, epublishing, emails back and forth to the team, reconciling changes, etc.) while taking care of two sick kids. Neither were eating, hard to get them to drink. We were all living off BRAT foods (which I have come to learn are not necessarily mandatory, but what I didn’t know is that we’d been hit with post-bug lactose intolerance). Ben would puke if he drank too much (post GI GERD) and Sam would puke if he had any dairy. This was a new thing for me. I had not seen that before. Our boys had not been in preschool so they were not exposed to as many GI bugs as other kids. The ones we got were 24 hr. This particular virus affects you for 7 days.
• Wednesday Sam seemed fine enough to go on a field trip to a play about Dinosaurs with his class. I’d volunteered to chaperone, so I helped the teacher get the kids ready, onto the bus, and keep them from getting too wild on the way there. You know what was funny about this? After waiting a bit to get going (while 100 Kindergarteners were loaded on the bus) the diesel smell made a few kids feel funny. As soon as we started winding up the Pali, a couple girls were like “EEEWWWW! I feel SIIIIICK!” I”m like “NOOOOOOOOO! Look at your shoes, pretty shoes! Aren’t those nice shoes!” No one packs barf bags for K field trips? I would!
• Tuesday was also remarkable for the fact that my computer’s motherboard decided to fail, three months after extended warranty coverage ended. And my insurance rider had an exclusion in it for any manufacturer defect. It would really only cover the computer if I drop-kicked it or one of the boys puked on it. Not just for plain hardware failure. How odd, huh? So I had to go to backup systems – thankfully I have multiple redundancies so I can stay afloat and have various levels of hassle required to get back in business.
• Friday I bought a new laptop. Insurance will give me $500 toward it ($250 deductible) and now I have a fast new SONY quadcore, with a hot pink keyboard cover. Not taking chances, man! Friday and Saturday were spent reinstalling software, calling the nice guys in India to get Adobe to give me another activation, and getting a sore throat!!! Yay, such fun. Friday night was funny, though, in a sick way. So Ben managed to get a cup with a straw (vs tiny holes) so he guzzled too much water at dinner. I’d made a nice soup/rice casserole to warm everyone now that they had a small appetite. Ben refused to eat and shortly we found out why – he burped and sent about a gallon of watery puke all over the table, dripping down the crack in the leaves to the floor. Sam and I thought it was funny (again) but Dave didn’t. Then the boys were building a tower of Ginger Ale cans while I was busy cleaning up puke again (by this time I am absolutely manic about cleaning – hands, house, you name it, I am a spraying/washing/scrubbing nut). The tower fell over puncturing one can. It started spraying vigorously. I grabbed it but didn’t think to cover the hole. The can sprayed all over the ceiling, stove, glassware, table, floor -all over -on its way to the sink. So the sugar in the soda will be a nice bait for the sugar ants which have been completely overwhelming our bug defenses here. Dave was beside himself by this point, poor guy! He felt yucky all week but never got sick – we’re not sure who was luckier – the night of H-E – double-L I spent or a nasty week?
• So what does one feed lactose intolerant boys? Much of our life revolves around cheese. This is a new one for us. So we went to McDs. Everyone was quite pleased. We sat safely outside in case anyone had a wet burp. Sam burped right across from Dave and you should have seen Daddy’s face. He was like “Buddy! Point to the bushes!” right next to us. All in all it was a nice night, seated outside by the hibiscus hedge, at someone else’s table, with someone else paid to mop in case we left a deposit. I was quite pleased. I think we might eat there every night. Leslie – I have sure been thinking of you through all this. The massive urpings! OMG!

So now I am off to bed. I hope you have all had a wonderful week. Thankfully the gauntlet revealed the joys of motherhood – I felt so bad for Sam that I prayed asking God to give me his remaining pukes that bad night on Sunday, and thankfully God complied, allowing me to have the worst night so Sam would be spared. You don’t often come face-to-face with wanting to take on your child’s suffering, but I definitely wanted to do that for him. And I have generally kept my sense of humor throughout it all, laughing at the insanity every chance I got. Yes, I was pretty tense during report writing, but that’s life. Two sick kids home with no babysitter able (or willing?) to come to the “hot zone” and kids not interested in “kids” shows because they are boring compared to our normal life out and about. It was challenging. Ben was tatooing me with stickers while I edited. They horsed around on the bed behind me or played in a “band” with their ukes and guitar. It was nuts, but we got it done and initial reactions to this report are “spectacular!” – wow. Cool.

Now I’m digging out of a backlog of work, thankful for a simple sore throat and good times with the family. But really, I honestly would prefer to be healthy right now after this. We had just gotten over a cold before we got slammed with the bug. So if you feel like shooting up a few prayers… I took pictures of the kids here and there during the “siege” so I will post when I can tomorrow. Thanks for bearing with me as I chronicle this experience. Aloha to all and to all a good night!

After grabbing the kids from school, my friend Claudia and her son headed to the beach with us. We parked near Bob's Pizza so we could head there for dinner after a couple hours in the water.

The boys had a great time catching waves, sharing the boogie board, doing hand-stands in the water, and getting tossed by yours truly. (Nearly lost my top on one of the boy-tossings thanks to a rogue arm grabbing at me after a “helicopter” spin over my shoulder followed by a tossing, then a huge wave washed me up on shore and nearly took my bottom off!). The water was warm, and the waves were pretty good. Ben got very brave, as you’ll be able to tell in a couple pictures 🙂 Thanks for a great time, guys!

Buried in foam after catching a big wave!

And he's up! A couple of older folks were sitting on the beach watching everyone play and really enjoyed seeing the boys go at it. It was nice to look up and see their smiles, reminding me of when mom and Richard are here.

Sam mountain biking with Ben, me and a new friend (Sabrina) at Maunawili Ditch Trail.

Sam loves to learn about several topics – music, space, caves, nature in general. Right now we’re reading about space again (thanks for that awesome book, mom, it really is great!). A friend of ours sent a picture of the crescent nebula from a recent trip into the desert (thanks, Ken!) and that sparked a trip out to the deck to see if we could find Ken’s nebula. I think we did – right in the summer triangle. So after reading more on nebulae tonight for bed (with Ben pulling at all the interactive fold-outs in the book and flopping his legs wildly on the bed) I tucked the boys in – as I was shutting the door I said “I love you guys more than all the stars in the galaxy and Sam said “Mom I love you more than all the water and ice on Europa. Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons.” Wow!

Sam continues to enjoy school, yet does comment that the computer time is growing tedious (I don’t think the literacy game they use – Imagine Learning – is moving quickly enough to keep his attention). He also got his name on the board (only the second time since school started Aug 2) – it was for laughing at a whole litany of naughty things the other kids were doing. This is on the heels of a brief conversation we had yesterday about what is worth laughing at and what should be ignored, of all the antics the kids perform. We decided if it’s a new trick and a good one at that, then go ahead and laugh. If it’s not new material, then ignore it. So I guess today was replete with new material. 🙂

Sam seems to be pretty popular among the kids – they make a point of saying hello to him, and seem particularly interested in his bike. It is unusual for a lower-class kid to bike to school, and he unlocks it and walks it out to the front turnaround all by himself to meet up with me (either in the truck or with Ben on my mt bike). Today some older girls wanted to ride his bike around (after trying to get on my mt bike before discovering it really was too big for them). Go Sam!

We are continuing to homeschool as a supplement to what he is getting at school. He’s doing Fry’s sight words (I made flash cards) and this has really helped accelerate his confidence-building for reading. Fry expanded on Dolch’s sight words (I think 25 of them) to create a list of 300 words that represent about 90% of what we read on a daily basis. So if kids can recognize those words right off, they are much better able to read. The sight words are typically “glue” words which hold concepts together and which are not easily illustrated (around, then, upon, etc.). So I have three sets of sight words, divided up into 25 cards per day. We whip through those “quiz kitties” (after a Skippy Jon Jones book) right after homework. The words he doesn’t get right off get their names written up on our white board, with a smile 🙂 This allows us to review the 10-12 words that were trickier at the end of the week. I spent two weeks per set so right now we’re on 2nd grade sight words. He’ll finish Sept knowing the 3rd grade sight words. I have already seen such a big difference in his confidence, which was the big obstacle for him. Sam wanted to read perfectly from the start – he didn’t want to have to sound things out. So it’s been a real effort on my part to balance helping him learn and showing him the benefits of practice, with giving it space and time.

Dave is also impressed with Sam’s continued growth in doing fraction math even though we aren’t teaching it in any formal way at all. We just occasionally provide him with a word problem to wrestle with. The most recent example – if we have 6 hard boiled eggs, how many does each of us get? Sam responded in approx 30 seconds with “one and a half.” He’s got a good mind, and I think we are doing ok in public school, although I really really really wish I could convince myself to take on the drive and hassles of enrolling in the Hawaii Tech Academy – a hybrid cyber charter school. It’s 21st century education and shows so much promise. We’ll wait for WA where this concept is a bit better developed and the logistics are easier. Right now we’re enjoying see Sam be part of his school community and reap the benefits of all those intangibles which can’t be measured with standardized tests.

That was a long update…thanks for your love and interest in our ohana.

Learning how to catch huge ghost crabs from a guy who grew up here on the islands.

After Sam’s uke lesson we went to one of our favorite snorkeling spots – Sam and I took off in a slightly different direction today to check it out. We saw a bunch of juvenile parrotfish, some threadfin butterflyfish and wrasse. Then somebody we hadn’t seen before strolled by – an 18″ long bonefish, most likely Elops Hawaiensis because of the brownish markings. Dave says no way did I see a rare Hawaiian ladyfish, but after careful checking I really think I did. Of course I didn’t have my camera with me to prove it, so I went back in and got it.

A new friend for Ben - his name is Sam!

Every now and then I’m contacted by another mother who has found www.outdoorohana.org useful for finding hikes to do with the kids, or for adventures with young kids while vacationing here on the island. It’s always gratifying to know that my efforts to provide information have facilitated families getting out and about together, enjoying exercise and nature. So when Amy contacted me a couple weeks ago to say thanks for all the hikes, it was really nice to hear from her, but what was even better is her invitation for me to join with her little group of moms – an informal “hui” – for activities they’d cooked up. How nice to be included! So Amy and I hooked up today for a hike with our kids – her 2 yr old Sam and my Ben. It was so great to meet her – her training is in early childhood education (newborn to age 8) and her career has spanned all those ages from nanny through preschool teacher and kindergarten teacher. She has chosen not to enroll her boy in preschool, opting instead to find good adventures for him in conjunction with other like-minded moms. I’m off to go wake Ben up from his nap so we can ride our “motorcycle” (bike) over to pick up Sam from school. I am blessed to have found another mom to tromp around with in the forest now that my original buddies have moved to WA – yes, Kathy, I shed a tear on my way to the trail because I miss having Sam in my truck for trail time (he was sad this morning, too) and I missed knowing I would be seeing you! Aloha, friend! But I know which trails you’re tromping up in WA and we’ll see you soon 🙂 In the meantime, I’ve got a new “A” for my A-team :0

"Uh, mom, my shorts are getting a little warm. But I think my marshmallow is done." (Not really, but we were just laughing about this picture and Sam's face seems to be saying this! It's one of his favorites from the trip.)

Every camping trip I look forward to with relish until the day of packup, then it suddenly seems very ill-advised to go in the midst of the projects underway at the time (pool fence, work, etc.). But once the tent is up and we’re all having a great time chillaxin in our little “clubhouse” as Ben calls it, I am very thankful that I geared up and went. This time it was a getaway timed with a day off of school for Sam. Dave couldn’t take off work, but we’re pretty comfortable with the drill (have you noticed that Dave often seems to have to work for camping trips? He’s not a big centipede guy, but they haven’t been out the last couple trips.) We had a really great time, despite Ben’s first bee sting (bee was hiding in the sand – never seen that before) and we managed to blow our truck battery listening to Bruce while packing up (I found a retired tank mechanic to jump start our truck – how lucky was that?!). And finally – the bird portion – wait ’til you see that picture (the last picture in the camping album). One of the strangest things I’ve ever seen! Enjoy the stories which accompany the pictures – Sam just went through them with me and it was fun sharing laughs together remembering. As he went back to sit and build some more Lego stuff he said “Mooom? When are we going camping again?” “I don’t know – want to go in Oct for your next break?” “Yeah. But next time I want to go for THREE nights.”

Sam locking his bike up in the morning before school.

Being the only kindergartener riding a bike to school has its challenges, but plenty of rewards, too. We get to chat for longer on the way over, we get our blood moving, and sometimes we have a few laughs over crazy spaz-outs (like almost running over a huge trash can, or getting a flat tire, or seeing a huge family of ducks out grazing). We have gotten to know our crossing guard, Anne Marie, who is maybe 70 and just as cute as can be – thin, graceful, sweet, immaculate in her bright yellow rain jacket and stop sign. She looks the picture of health, probably has tea and toast in the morning, sends the kids off with a “have a great day!” and then hikes the tallest ridges. That’s my guess. I hope I am like her when I’m grown up. In other news the campus has gone nut-free – yes, they found me out! no more nuts on campus! After expressing my concerns from a public health policy standpoint (see NY and MA guidance on managing allergens on campus) I began collecting suggestions for healthy nut-free lunches and providing them to the PTA president for her newsletter. I bought Sam a bento box and filled it up with healthy food in the classic Japanese 4:3:2:1 ratio (rice:meat:vegetable:dessert). It was a great way to think outside the lunchbox, so in a way I’m grateful for the somewhat misdirected ban, and of course empathetic to the challenges the kids with severe allergies face. Sam is adjusting very well to school and relishes telling me every day who is chasing who on the playground, who got knocked over in the chase, who jumped out from behind the playground equipment, who got their name on the board (Sam did once so far for imitating a drumming noise the class troublemaker was making), and other classroom news. He is now unlocking his bike himself and walking it to the turnout area where all the parents pick up their kids. We are the only yellow Xterra, so we’re easy to find (we look like a school bus!) and the other day Ben and I turned up on our bike to ride home with Sam. That was fun.

Sam is such a grown-up guy, and I am very proud of him. All the concerns people have about preschooling their kids so they are able to adjust to school I think are overrated. A bit of care and attention is all it took to prepare Sam, and he had no tears until today when his bike lock would not cooperate when I arrived to pick him up. Poor guy. Daddy had a bad day, too, leaving his ID at home by accident then found his check engine light on after already spending $1200 on a new clutch. Oy. Hoping the car was just having a bad day. I called to him from way across the field as he was running toward me, and when he arrived I suggested he try to calm down, give it one more go, just being sure the numbers were all lined up with the knobbies and right-side up. I watched from 100 yards away as he went back at it, and ultimately prevailed. I was SO proud of him! (I couldn’t easily leave to rescue him as Ben was in the truck and car upon car was trying to get around us to collect their kid(s).) There is a whole band of guys (junior police officers) who stand with little helmets on to help the kids get in their cars. They have whistles, they open car doors, they hold out stop signs to let people cross, they signal the line of cars to advance to get the next batch of kids. It’s quite impressive.

Anyway…here’s our Bento box.

Bento box lunch! Carbs (whole grain omega-3 fortified bread with yogurt spread and honey); hummus; veggies; fruit; and Hershey's kisses (not shown).

Be jealous. Be very very jealous! It’s so fun to put things in little containers, and the food proportions are exactly right…they follow the food pyramid. Thanks for your patience in waiting for a new post. I feel like I can’t quite catch my breath yet although my book project is over. I am currently managing the install on a pool fence for our assoc and wrapping up a total redesign of a podiatry practice’s website, logo, online registration form and collateral material as well as doing some statistics on a paper for which I’m coauthor. I am overstimulated for sure. But we’re going off the grid tomorrow to camp because Friday is a holiday (Hawaii was made a state 58 years ago I think.) So more in a few days! Enjoy your weekend 🙂