Eileen is one of the most beautiful humans I have ever met, inside and out. I love her furiously, even when she is driving me nuts. I used to be able to exert my will on her a little -- select her outfits, style her hair.
Eileen is now her own woman. I may buy the clothes, but she selects her own outfits. Why wear a cute outfit when you can wear an old camper t-shirt (or better yet--old tye dye!) and sweat pants paired carefully with bulky socks and striped Toms for shoes. I let her be herself. I lovingly refer to her look as "slightly feral." She is required to wear a uniform to school so I try to let her choose how she dresses in her free time. I just ask it to be weather appropriate.
Hair is a completely different issue. Eileen has thin, dark blonde hair. It has an inability to be pulled straight back. If you do, it splits into sections, creating rows of hairs standing erect. It begins to tangle almost immediately after brushing.
Last year I discovered the magic of the Wet Brush. It easily works its way through tangles and doesn't leave a heavy residue like de-tangler. When she was younger, I used to pull the top of her hair back and to the side. We called this "Eileen" hair. It worked well. She frequently wore her hair in two ponytails and would sometimes let me even braid her hair. Eileen has elicited stares and gasps when she wears her hair in braids. She looks that stunning.
Eileen could care less about winning admiration for her hair. These days I have to beg her to let me put her hair in a simple low ponytail. When she does let me, it lasts less than an hour. Once free of its elastic prison, her hair quickly looks like this.
I call it, "The Scraggle."
The Scraggle frustrates me to no end. Last year a teacher asked Eileen, and not in a joking manner, if she had forgotten to brush her hair that morning! I wasn't mad. I felt validated!
I keep wondering if Eileen's hair will thicken when she turns twelve like mine did. School begins in one week. My hope is that Eileen will decide that this year she would like to pull her hair back, even just partially. I'm pretty sure this is pay back for my youth. In third grade I remember fighting my parents about my hair on picture day. They made me wear a barrette. I was scared of the consequences if I took it out. The barrette didn't look good and I have a weird smile on my face. But I suppose the point was that you could see my face.
My plan right now is to perform subtle acts of subterfuge. Eileen does a pretty good job using a brush. These are my next steps.
I'm going to help her learn to use an elastic hairband to pull back hair. She owns plenty.
I own a book of different braid hairstyles. I will leave it lying on the coffee table next to her favorite chair.
Then I'll suggest we practice braiding yarn. I learned to braid in girl scouts. We braided strands of yarn and stuck cinnamon sticks and cloth packets of cloves in the yarn.
Then, "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to practice braiding each other's hair?"
It will be mother-daughter bonding at its finest! I'm optimistic, but also realistic. I know that The Scraggle is going to stick around for a while longer. I love my slightly feral daughter. She is a creative, free spirit. She has no interest in boys, drama, or princesses. She likes graphic novels, crafting, art, swimming, and cats. Someday I may even miss The Scraggle. Someday, but not today.
This week the kids and I took our annual summer adventure to Bainbridge Island. It's always at the top of the kids' lists of places to go. This year we met up with my aunt, Eileen, at Battle Point Park. It's a large park with a lot going on and I'm pretty sure that if I lived on the island, I would spend a lot of time there.
It has a great playground (similar to the one at St. Edwards). The playground was not crowded at all. Miracle of miracles, all three kids even played together!
We walked around the park with a goal of seeing one of the ponds. The park has trails (both paved and not). Along the way we found some good blackberry picking. Aunt Eileen thought ahead and had buckets ready for picking.
Aunt Eileen is camoflagued. I love how Linus is peeking out through the bushes.
We headed back to Aunt Eileen's for lunch. Her house is always exciting. There are literally thousands of gnomes, cool workshops, and a large garden.
The kids took it upon themselves to harvest zucchini and blueberries from the garden. We picked more blackberries. While I hung out with my aunt, the kids found my Uncle Duane in the garage. They were excited about the motorcycles. Linus has big plans.
Linus is singing, "He'll be driving 6 black horses when he comes." I'm pretty sure he was thinking of the 4 black horsemen of the apocalypse.
We finished off our day at Mora Ice Cream while waiting to take the Kingston ferry home. Wow. It may honestly be some of the best ice cream I have ever had and that is seriously saying something.
Robin, in true Robin form, only ate a few bites but managed to get it all over his seatbelt and face. I was a good mom and helped him eat his ice cream.
The kids had a great time entertaining themselves. I love the summer magic of Bainbridge Island.
Today I invited my mom and sister over to make blackberry jelly and offload some zucchini on them. During childhood August meant an abundance of zucchini, blackberry picking on Bainbridge, and canning blackberry jelly.
While we didn't do full on canning, we did make some excellent jelly.
Of course Linus had to pretend he was bleeding. Grandma thought this was hilarious.
If you haven't made jelly. Don't be scared. I just followed the recipe on the pectin container to get me started. I did replace half the white sugar with brown and added in 3/4 tsp allspice. The result is awesome, cobbler tasting jelly.
These are the types of days I hope my kids remember when they look back on their childhood.
**Full disclosure, I hope they don't remember yesterday when they fought non-stop and I thought I was going to lose my mind.
I sent the big kids to Camp Don Bosco last week. This year I planned ahead and sent them AT THE SAME TIME! It was an awesome week from my end.
Monday
Drop Linus off at camp. He went with his friend, Alex. Linus was a little annoyed to find out he was in Tonga again. I think he had dreams of Snoqualmie Lodge. Another boy from school happened to be in his cabin too.
From camp, we drove to first to Target and I did some school shopping with the other two. Then we were off to Ballard to take Robin to the doctor for a massive ear infection.
Tuesday
We had a nice slow morning. I cleaned house. We had frozen yogurt. I got to go to the eye dr.
Wednesday
I drove Eileen to camp for mini-camp (4 days instead of 6). She was so excited. Apparently, it was former staffs' kids go to camp week.
Down his big siblings, Robin got to look forward to a life of freedom and choice. First stop? Snoqualmie Falls.
Robin requested Pagliacci for lunch. Then we drove to West Seattle for a mommy playdate with two friends from my grade school/high school days. Robin was a very good sport while I enjoyed grown up conversation. We took a leisurely drive home where we stopped by Dick's (another favorite of Robin's) for dinner. Life with just one kid is so much more chill!
Thursday
We enjoyed another slow morning (ie I slept in and let Robin play on the ipad). Then we investigated a new park (Bothell Landing). We walked the trails, climbed and slid on the playground, and played Pooh sticks on the bridge. Let it be known that I won.
In the afternoon, Robin patiently allowed me to have a 3 hour meeting with my school principal about the master schedule.
Down to one kid, it was a little simpler to find childcare. Dave and I went on a date!
Friday
In the morning another teacher friend and her two little ones came over to play. I graciously offered to hold the baby and put her to sleep. I was surprised that Robin actually engaged the little 18 month old boy. Generally, Robin is not awesome with kids younger than him.
In the afternoon we helped Aunt Sally run errands in Ballard. We took her to a toy store. We introduced her to Full Tilt Ice Cream and made time for a little video game and pinball playing.
Robin with Blue Moon.
Saturday
We picked up the kids from camp. Eileen was in a cabin with the kids of two former staff. She had a great time.
What were the names of the other kids in your cabin? I don't know.
What was the name of your counselor? I don't know.
What was the best part of camp? Pool. Everything. I even went off the diving board ten times! (This is huge as Eileen is generally scared of things like water slides and diving boards.)
Why yes Eileen is wearing 3 shirts - the shirt she put on before breakfast, her new camper t-shirt, and her new tie dye shirt that you can tell she did "with no help."
Linus had a mixed experience. He liked his counselors and had fun. It sounds like there were some boys in the lodge that made things difficult. Linus had his heart set on a few activities that didn't happen. Good news? He still wants to go back and he has big plans for next year.
When he packed for camp, Linus only packed one change of clothes and no underwear. He straight up told me it wasn't going to be necessary to change his clothes. I went ahead and added some more clothes and underwear to his bag. I can confirm Linus did change his clothes at least twice. He brushed his teeth once. He did shower, but did not use soap.
Robin missed his people. He had a hard time sleeping at night, knowing Linus wasn't there.
I missed the big kids, but I loved the relaxed nature of just one kid, particularly one who is more likely to go with the flow. I think Robin enjoyed all of our special time together. I went back to work when he was one. He didn't get as much time with me as a stay at home mom.
"Helping" me with the laundry.
Camp continues to be a happy place for my kids. They talk about summer camp all year long. Some people are shocked when they hear I send my kids away overnight, even as a 6 or 7 year old. My response, "Why wouldn't I? It's awesome."
They have fun.
They gain independence.
They play hard.
There is no screen time battle. There are no screens at camp.
I get a guilt free break.
In this case, my youngest got some much needed alone time with both his parents.
If they let kids entering kindergarten go to mini-camp next year, I will be signing Robin up. He is insanely jealous that his siblings got to go.
I've had my share of luck over the years. The biggest would be in the in-law department. I married into a pretty great family. Since the first grandkids were born 16 years ago, there have been regular get togethers, or clan bakes as we call them. We used to do them every month, but it's been starting to move to the bi-monthly category. Last year the idea was floated of a giant family vacation to Maui.
The idea of going on vacation with 26 other people, 26 other personalities, might seem like the worst idea ever. I think what made the whole thing possible is acceptance of our differences (and there are many), a lot of love, and the general idea that everyone had positive intentions. My mother and father in law deserve the most credit for this vacation since they paid for it. Gail and Laurence celebrated 50 years of marriage and Gail also just retired after 30 years of being the church lady at a Catholic Church. I am still in awe of their generosity.
As a show of gratitude, I shared my gift of organization. Planning this large a vacation is no small task. It's a lot of cars, hotel rooms, and air travel from both the Seattle area and New Zealand. Planning started 12-15 months in advance, with reservations happening 7 months in advance. Different siblings helped along the way from the offer to pay for breakfast for all grandkids at the hotel everyday, to compiling a memory book, booking a snorkel trip, to organizing a special show. It took many hands.
Getting to Maui was something out of the Brady Brunch, almost. We were all on the same flight over except for the 4 flying from New Zealand. Luckily, they landed the same time as us. The worst part of the entire trip was dealing with the rental car agency. If you value your time, money, sanity, then do not, I repeat DO NOT use Budget Rental Car on Maui. There are no words to describe what a terrible, horrible, sweaty, time-consuming experience trying to rent cars was with them. The good news is that it bonded all of us.
Life was good once we made it to the hotel. I cannot recommend Kanaapali Beach Hotel enough. It was perfect for our large group. We were able to have the bottom floor of one of the buildings (necessary due to some special needs). Some rooms were adjoining. We were all able to easily gather just outside our rooms on the grass. I could see kids walk to and from the room when I was at the pool. It was awesome. We totally utilized the grassy area right outside our room. The pool is no frills but big enough to have a good time. It's warm (even warm enough for me to be willing to go in) and has a decent shallow end that Robin loved.
Robin looks good Hawaiian style.
With so many adults and ages to contend with (kids ages 6 weeks to 16 years), we regularly split up. It was nice to know that there was someone always available to watch a kid if you needed to be elsewhere. I'm still in awe how smoothly everything went.
Everyone was excited to meet Baby Wesley, age 6 weeks
Meetings of adults were necessary after breakfast to figure out logistics.
Laurence looking regal.
We dragged the kids to mass on Sunday in Lahaina. It was sooooo sweaty. Instead of coffee and donuts after mass, or even lunch, we opted for shave ice.
Over half our group went on a snorkel trip to Molokini Crater. I know myself and know that boats just make me vomit. I was so miserable on the last snorkel trip I took, I opted out of this one. Instead I stayed back with Robin and my niece, Lucy. We had lots of fun at the beach. And it meant that her mommy actually got to go on the snorkel trip with all her big kids.
Eileen on the boat to Molokini Crater.
Did I mention that my nephew, Wesley, has a naturally occurring mohawk?
Linus begged me to buy him a coconut. Cracking open the coconut was an afternoon family activity.
Dave and I decided to invest in actual snorkel gear for the kids. Bonus? Linus and I are the same snorkel and fin size. Eileen is a natural.
We all really wanted to celebrate Gail and Laurence, and their awesomeness. We sent them to a nice dinner at the Mala Ocean Tavern (very cool place that is also a sea turtle sanctuary). Additionally, we dedicated an afternoon/evening to them. After doing a session with a family photographer, we wanted to put on a little show of appreciation before we all headed to a luau at the Royal Lahaina. Every family planned something special to do and then everyone sang "Buy you a rainbow" for them. While Gail and Laurence were at their special dinner, we all practiced for the big show set for the following day. We got applause from people on their lanais above us.
This video makes me so happy.
I don't think Gail and Laurence knew we were planning anything. One of my favorite things on the entire trip was watching a re-enactment of the fight between the man in black and Fezzik from Princess Bride starring my three year old kiwi niece, April, as the man in black. She was amazing--costumes, dedication to the role, the lines! For our family's part, we did the bear camping skit by the request of the kids.
During our celebration we presented Gail and Laurence with the memory book, compiled by my sister-in-law. It's full of pictures, memories, original compositions inspired by childhood stories.
Linus and I both could not get enough of this sweet baby.
My father-in-law, classic dad.
The luau was great. I've now been to three different luaus and the one at the Royal Lahaina was my favorite. It definitely had the best menu and I appreciated that you got a print out of the menu, highlighting what was gluten free or vegetarian. It also had a kids buffet table. The whole thing was just really well run and many people's favorite part of the trip.
We got Maori tribal tattoos at the luau.
Beautiful girl.
I was a little surprised by just how much Linus enjoyed the luau.
We enjoyed some great snorkeling walking distance to our hotel, just on the other side of the black rock. Linus, Eileen, and Dave even saw a spotted eagle ray! Robin was more into the sand/beach aspect.
Daddy/daughter snorkel
So many cousins!
Eileen and Linus loved spending time with their cousins. Eileen and Abigail are best buds.
Another favorite moment from the trip was when I was snorkeling with Eileen. Abigail swam over to us. I watched the two of them meet under water and grasp each other with both hands. It was beautiful.
Dave and Linus joined a crew that went to the Haleakala Volcano.
Meanwhile, I stayed behind with the younger girls and Robin. We ate shave ice and visited the Banyan Tree.
We had to hurry back to the hotel for hula lessons.
Linus at Snorkel Bob's.
Linus discovered a new passion for lizard hunting. Meet Magnus.
We all spent a lot of time at the pool. By a lot, I mean at least 4 hours a day. Robin misses it.
We've been home a few days now. Adjusting to time zones is never fun. It's even worse with kids. We had a great time. It was not the same experience as my kid-free Hawaiian vacation. Dave and I did get a lovely evening out courtesy of my awesome principal. Otherwise, we barely saw each other.
This was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. I am so grateful for my entire family on Dave's side. It takes a special group of people to pull off something like this. Thank you Gail and Laurence for growing this family and providing this amazing vacation.
