A Rough Morning Rant Followed By Adventures From Ko Olina Lagoon #4

This morning kind of sucked. Christopher accidentally woke the kids up (its hard not to, when we're all crammed into just one room) while he was getting ready for work at 6am- and there was just no recovering. Fast forward 3 hours, to when everyone was getting on everyones nerves, I had a brilliant idea to haul the stroller in from the balcony (I can barely carry it), through the narrow space between the beds and the couch, and out into the hallway where I planned to load the kids up, to take them downstairs and down the street for a nice stroll along the Waikiki beach boardwalk. Sounds like a great start to our day, right?! Who wouldn't want to wake up and walk along Waikiki? ...Too bad the dang thing (the stroller) was somehow broken, and I spent nearly 15 minutes sweating it back together while the kids were all nagging and crying at me, complaining that "theres nothing to do". Well eventually we got downstairs, hogging the entire elevator on our decent, and out into the fresh air and sunshine, to start our journey.

And it was gorgeous out! Oh, so gorgeous. 

But nothing seems to go smoothly lately, so at the first "no" that I responded to Eleanore with, when she asked if she could ride the giant sand buggy on display beside the taller than mountains display of surf boards for rent, the sassy six year old started dragging her feet and spitting out insults. Ugh. So its one of those days, is it? Charlie and Evelyn rocked the walk, sitting happily in the jogger as I pushed them along side the crashing waves, but Eleanore... kicked up sand, and sobbed, as loudly as possible, the whooooole way there, and whoooooole way back. 

I somehow managed to keep a smile on my face and ignore her, though everyone on the boardwalk was distracted from whatever it was that they were doing by the screaming little girl shouting God knows what (seriously, nonsense) at the top of her whiny lungs. Towards the end of the mess, a really tall surfer man even stopped to try to brighten her day by serenading her (or maybe he was serenading me, ooh la lah!)- and she still couldn't pull herself out of it. 

I admit, I was embarrassed. As she shouted that she hated me, and that I was the worst Mom ever, and that she was going to starve to death if I didn't give her a juice box (makes sense, right?)- I wanted to abandon the situation for a lounge chair and lemonade in the sand. Everyone looked our way as we passed. Me pushing the babies merrily (bright cheeked, but still merry!), a smile on my sun kissed and angry face, enjoying the comfort of the sea salt scented trade winds... and Eleanore stomping and shrieking like a wild banshee behind me. So even though I knew everyone was watching, and I wanted to turn around and smack some sense into her (I don't hit my child, but sometimes I sure wish I did!), I did what I knew I needed to do to show her that she wasn't going to ruin my day, or anybody elses- which was to act as if her ridiculous tantrum wasn't evening happening. I got a few friendly sympathy smiles from folks who I assume were fellow parents, and a few dirty looks from tourists who maybe had to turn up their ipods a few notches in order to drown out the sounds (boy I wish I would have had an ipod), but- by the time we got back to our room, I think she had gotten the point. Or maybe she didn't, but- someday she will, right?! One can hope. 

All 3 of the kids are asleep right now, so I've finally had a few minutes to myself. The house keeper came in and gave us fresh towels and changed our garbage. I baked two loaves of Pamela's bread. And when I was finished with that, I sat down with a few photos from our beach trip to Ko Olina last Saturday. 

My camera card was almost full when we got there, and I didn't have any spares with me, so I didn't get to go picture crazy like I wanted to (which was probably a good thing), but the photos that I did get were pretty alright, the perfect still shots of my memory. Minus the scorching sunburn that my legs took.

Look at that. Just look.

We couldn't have found a more perfect spot. I had terrible pregnancy insomnia the night before- being woken up at 2:00 by my son falling out of his bed, and then not being able to get back to sleep- so I had lunches and swim suits packed, and we were out the door before 8am. There was plenty of parking, and only a few people on the beach.

The water was the clearest blue that I think I've ever seen. And so warm. This place really is paradise.

The plan was to hunt for sea shells, but turns out this isn't really a shell hunting stretch of sand, so- the best we could come up with were these tooth looking things. There were a few good ones within those finds, but for the most part it was a bit of a bust. I told Elie we'll have to find our own special sea shell beach. We've got a few years to do it yet- no big hurry.

We brought our whole haul of sand toys with us, so hours were spent digging and stacking, building sand castles and tributaries of all sorts. I'm pretty sure they spent more time digging than they did swimming. And at one point, we had collected somebody elses kids who wanted to get in on the action. I took that opportunity to disappear deep into the lagoon for a little swim- I had been wanting to get my dreads wet all day.

The sands at Ko Olina are white and fluffy, unlike the rough treks along Ala Moana and Waikiki. Walking barefoot in this stuff was actually a pleasure- feathers instead of rocks.

We chased little fishies through the shallow waters, and dodged rain drops from the random clouds that would sporadically pop up overhead. Did I mention how bad we all needed this?

Sure, there was still coughing from our lingering sickness, which we think may actually be some environmental adjustment allergies, but- we were able to get past it and really enjoy ourselves. I'm not sure I've ever seen the kids so happy in all their lives. Between Evelyn's "simming in da ooh-sin!", and brother crushing big sister's sand castles... life just doesn't get much better.

I look forward to this upcoming weekend for a possible return to the blue lagoon, or maybe one of its neighboring waters. Only this time, I'll remember to apply sunblock to my pasty white legs more than once- I'm still sleeping uncomfortably because of the pink sting.

Oh- I hear the beast (Eleanore, in case you haven't picked up on my passive aggressiveness yet) stirring behind me. And the other two, too. Time to switch the background noise from HGTV to Spongebob or something equally annoying- and time to cut up my freshly baked bread as well!

Its kind of nice, blogging regularly again. Even if I am just sort of using this as an outlet for my mood swings, and even if it is only temporary until I have an entire house to take care of again.

Until next time?