A Little More Summertime

“Is there anything you’d like to do this weekend?” I asked the kids.

“Shave ice!” Isaac said immediately, still a little annoyed he’d missed out on shave ice day at school because I didn’t know what that meant on the calendar and wasn’t prepared. The next day I similarly forgot he had PE and needed sneakers AND forgot to put his weekly homework in his backpack. We are so on top of things lately.

I think it’s good to set low expectations right from the beginning. That way when I volunteer they’ll be like, “Suuuuuuuuure….” and be pleasantly surprised when I show up on time. For the record, I offered to run home and get Isaac his sneakers and he gave me a frozen-faced-big-eyes look and shook his head stiffly. “That would embarrass me.” Okaaaaaay. His teacher shrugged and said lots of kids don’t ever wear sneakers. Yay, Hawaii!

So we explored some WWII bunkers in the Kailua hills, picked up my custom lava bead birthday present bangle from Aloha Bangles, stopped at Island Snow by the beach, sprinted to the bathroom for the two year old, and caught some waves and a pretty big crab at Kailua Beach.

 

Eloise set herself adrift in her pink floatie, swimming away from me way out over my head, to the alarm of a Japanese tourist next to me, who kept looking at me like I was crazy. Then I realized this was, indeed, crazy, because the Woo was not planning to turn around and come back. Her strong little toddler legs were paddling steadily for Flat Island. It is not close. I swam out and dragged her back.

“I am swimming in the ocean!” she sang. “Eloise is swimming in the ocean!”

Some days, cramming this much into one day would undo us. Today, for whatever reason, it worked…despite some early “accidents” and later vase shattering (TWO YEAR OLDS!!!!). Summertime may be ending most other places, here in Hawaii it’s just another fun day at the beach!