Maui Pt. 1

There is a sticker on the bulletin board in our condo that says, "Please take off your Shoes before entering but no switch to better shoes when you leave." What does that mean? Jacob and I can't wrap our heads around it. It seems to imply don't steal any of the shoes in our house but that doesn't seem very hospitable. I guess it is just one of the mysteries of the island.

I've come to Maui with three basic goals (outside of the obvious of seeing our dear friends Lindsay and Sarah get married): Don't drown; don't get eaten by a shark; don't get sunburnt. The first two seem pretty easy but the last one is going to be rough. Luckily we've packed FIVE tubes of sunblock for 7 days here so I'm hopeful. The bulk of the guests at our condo complex seem to be over the age of 65 and I'm amazed at the their ability to bask in the sun like leathery honey baked hams next to the pool.

It's our first day here and our timing is all off. I barely made it to 7:30 last night before crashing out hard. Jacob woke up at 3:30 in the morning and would not stop pestering me to get up until I sternly told him he was annoying me (kind of like the verbal equivalent of hitting a puppy with a rolled up newspaper - NOT that I would do that. It's very old-school thinking and besides, anyone who has spent any time around any of my many animals over the years knows that I have no patience for discipline. Or training of any sort).

I think this crab is actually dead

Just as they did the last time we were in Maui, the boys took advantage of the time change and headed out to play basketball at 5:30 am.  I left not much later to walk the trail that runs along the ocean. It is insanely hot and muggy here so it was nice to get up before the sun was too high in the sky. There are plaques along the trail detailing interesting bits of Hawaiian culture and history. At one stop, I read about Eddie Pu (or "Mr. Aloha" as he was also known).  With a ti leaf wrapped around his forehead and only a towel, a walking stick and a bag of trail mix, Eddie walked the entire circumference of Maui each year for decades. I made the mistake of paying over $9 for a modest bag of trail mix during our first visit to the store so, while I hope to do a bunch of walking, it's going to have to be with a cheaper snack.

There's a lesson in this somewhere

Vaughn drives me crazy when he leaves his dirty clothes all over the house. Truth be told, all three of us are slobs but unlike Jacob and I, he can't be counted on to jump in and pick up. After numerous requests to remove his clothes from the bathroom went unmet, I instituted the new rule that all dirty clothes needed to be worn on his head until they were taken to the laundry basket where they belonged.

Vaughn is unphased by my new rule

We take Vaughn to a concert and he is not impressed.

There's been a serious decline in the quality of Vaughn's musical choices in the last year. Previously, he could be counted on to basically listen to whatever we did but now he's getting his own tastes and opinions and they are leaning toward hip hop and pop. When this came on I threatened to lock him the basement with a bunch of punk rock albums until he came to his senses but now I've thrown in the towel and just grit my teeth as he sits in the front seat and commandeers the car radio.

The other night we decided to take him to go see Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails and I hoped the energy of the show would maybe have a slight deprogramming effect on him. On the way there, we gave in and let him download the 'Explicit' version of the new Eminem song. Up until now, we've made him get the clean versions but I realized
that all kids hate having their music censored because their parents are all bunchy about the lyrics or message or whatever (how many times did I miss out on "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood when it was in constant rotation in the '80's?). Jacob also pointed out that we were taking him to a show where the lead singer growls about wanting to "fuck you like an animal." Parenting is a constant barrage of contradictions.

Anyway, despite having a pretty good time, he had been at a water park all day and started wearing down early. We had to cut out about a half hour into Nine Inch Nail's set, which made me sad since I missed them in high school when I had the flu. I don't think we changed any hearts or minds last night- but we still had a pretty good time.

A Phone Call

Vaughn had an assignment tonight as part of his Service Learning Journal. The assignment was called "A Phone Call" and the instructions read:

Most of us have a person in our life that we don't see very often and would love to receive a phone call or letter checking in and catching up. A simple gesture of a phone call or written letter can make someone's day very special. Choose a person who is of an older generation to call or write a letter to. 

Nice sentiment! Vaughn chose his Grandpa Lou who it's fair to say he sees on a pretty regular basis. We tried to coach Vaughn on some meaningful questions but because he is pretty lazy about homework, he went with three questions that just scream "catching up."

1. How was your day?
2. Do you have any plans for tomorrow?
3. What did you eat for breakfast?

Actually, now that I think about it, those aren't bad "checking in" questions for an older adult but I don't think that was the spirit of the assignment. When we teased him about the quality of the assignment, Vaughn actually tried to pin a little blame on my dad by saying that he just said his plans for tomorrow were to do "something indoors" rather than naming something specific. My dad, for his part, confessed that Vaughn's giggling throughout the interview made him think that perhaps he and Sten were playing a trick on him (which would be fair since they did try and slip my dad a couple melatonin a few years ago when my dad was babysitting them. Once bitten…)

The best part of the assignment was the final question: How did you feel about the conversation after? How do you think it made them feel? Vaughn's answer? "I think it made my grandpa feel more included in my life."

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Faithful readers know that each year for my birthday, Jacob learns and plays a song of my choice. This year it was "Wagon Wheel" and although I got an 'official recording' with all the editing, I love this version I shot on my phone.

Training Day

The last time I was "a runner" was my senior year in high school. After not having done anything athletic for two years, I decided I'd run track my senior year (full disclosure: this was after flaying really badly at badminton try-outs. It turns out some people take that really seriously!).

I started running a solid couple miles every few days and considered myself in pretty decent shape, so it was a big surprise when I showed up for the first day and the warm up was a mile - half my total workout! Those of us who planned on running "the mile" competitively were sent off to run FIVE miles for our daily workout. After already running a mile! There was no way I was going to go five miles. Despite the encouragement of my fellow teammates, I bailed off the course after a couple more miles. I think I gave a couple other track sports a go (discovering I had developed a healthy fear of hurdles) before bailing on the idea of competing in track altogether.

Fast forward to now when I have no heart/lung capacity (but knees that will go the distance!). Vaughn announced he'd like to start running and running competitively. I figure, unlike basketball, with a little effort I can do this in at least the very minor leagues. We decided we'd set a goal for a 5K exactly one month from now. Today was our first day of training and although we walked/ran the 3.1 miles, we felt so good after that Jacob got on our pavement bandwagon and all three of us are signed up for the Shamrock Run. Our goal is to be able to actually run the whole thing without having to walk.

Pre-Run!

Memories

I have loved Vaughn at every age. Watching him grow and unfold - I remember clearly the feeling that he was a book we had no idea what it was about. We watched him take shape, develop personality, things he was good at, things he gravitated toward.

In some ways, I love this age the best. At eleven and a half, he is polite and genuinely caring with a quirky and off-beat sense of humor that makes me so proud.

So it's fair to say that I was totally unprepared for the intensity of emotions elicited by watching old baby videos. Videos we haven't watched since we filmed them. The people in the videos are almost strangers to me. I recognize these younger, smoother versions of Jacob and I but I do not connect us to them. Such is the disconnect that I don't see the baby on the screen in the child sitting next to me and it fills me with an unexpected pain and longing. I watch the video of Vaughn and I in the tub, blowing bubbles and practicing letters and I ache to hold his chubby body and breathe in the baby smell. I don't want Vaughn back as a baby and I certainly don't want ANOTHER baby, but I can't reconcile the sadness. The baby on the screen seems like a separate person - a person who is irretrievably gone. I think, "I had a baby once - where is my baby?" I imagine my loving, sweet boy playing with the baby on the screen. I guess it is just one of those maternal things that happens as we get older and watch our children grow.