Keiki in Paradise

Sarah and I are "brave." At least according to countless numbers of gray-haired tourists who exclaimed this on the airplane, over pineapple at breakfast, on the beach, and in the hotel. Some would call you valiant for taking on the likes of the Spanish Armada or climbing a steep mountain in the dead of winter, but we were rewarded this title for simply taking a vacation. Yes, that is right we took our little Keiki (child in Hawaiian) to the white sand beach of Oahu, spent 5 days lounging, working on our tans, and hiking in lush forests with plenty of water and we are the bravest people on the planet. In all fairness this was not the easiest vacation in the world, but our daughter proved to be on her best behavior for about 87% of the trip which was just enough to have a great time and still produce some good stories about screaming and pooping. Anyway, I should start from the beginning.




Our story begins with two Hawaii loving adults who can't seem to make it through the harsh California winter without spending a few days in paradise. This usually involves a February trip to the Island du jour, but with the arrival of Claire this year, our trip needed to be postponed. As the trip grew near we began to worry about how we would pack for our first excursion with the baby. A 14 lb baby with practically zero interest in toys still requires an amazing entourage. First there is the car seat. Simply enough you might say, but first we packed the car seat base. No problem, but this unit alone (only half the car seat) filled the entire suitcase I packed when we went on our 2 week trip to New Zealand. This left the other half of the car seat, the stroller, all her clothes, her diapers, her wipes, her bottles, and her blankets. By the time we took inventory of what was needed I began to have trouble visualizing how we'd make our way through the airport without dropping bags or forgetting the baby along the way. That is when I had the brilliant idea of practicing towing our luggage and pushing the baby. Although Sarah poked fun at such a notion, my early preparation proved effective as we later effortlessly made our way through security and onto the plane with nearly an hour to spare.

Claire's first flight was amazingly smooth and not because there wasn't any turbulence. The best advice I can give new parents cautiously approaching their first flight is to pack plenty of diapers, a change of clothes, and feed the baby on take off and landing. All the books we read and our recent experience confirmed this. It didn't hurt that we were bumped up to the ample space of business class either. So here we are, we've practiced carrying our luggage, we've planned and packed accordingly for our trip and are ready to collect our rental car. Apparently this is where our preparation ended. Upon arrival at the Honolulu airport we remembered the long roundabout shuttle ride to the car rental center which was less 100 feet from the terminal and decided to walk. This proved to be an excellent idea as we walked right up to the Avis counter and declared were there to rent a car. Great plan right? Well yes, but it turns out our reservation was with Alamo. No problem though as all the rental agencies were within walking distance of each other. We walked right past Dollar, Hertz, and Budget and quickly realized that Alamo was nowhere to be found. Upon returning to the Avis desk, the man declared that we needed to board the shuttle and he'd return us to the terminal where we could pick up the Alamo shuttle. So we did and believe it or not, it took us about 15-20 minutes to get back to the terminal only 100 feet away. The traffic pattern at the airport is such that driving from the car rentals to the terminals requires you to first go away from the airport, then go through departing flights, then loop back behind the car rental places and then finally make your way to the arriving flights. That is where we finally found the Alamo shuttle, boarded it, passed by the Avis cars for the 5th time and were finally able to collect our car.


After unloading the car seat from our suitcase and securing Claire we drove to the Lotus hotel wedged beautifully between Diamond Head and the ocean. Our room on the 8th floor afforded us a wonderful view of both of these and as we put on our swimsuits and headed to San Souci beach, we quickly forgot about the long experience at the airport. The small beach between two nearby hotels had just enough room for 20 or so patrons but there was still a nice spot for us to setup our towels and umbrella for the baby. After taking turns frolicking in the ocean while the other watched the baby, we decided it was time to leave as the wind started picking up and our baby's deafening cry started drowning out every other sound on the beach. The remaining few couples hoping to catch a nice romantic sunset certainly got more than they bargained for as their attention was clearly drawn to the couple unable to calm their baby. We quickly packed our bags and moved our party first to the lobby of the hotel where after scaring some prospective clients we momentarily were able to calm her down. That was of course until we decided to take the elevator to our room. We weren't sure if it was the quick ascent followed by the abrupt stop at our floor or early onset baby claustrophobia but throughout the entire trip Claire made it clear to us that she hated elevators. One time she was smiling and cooing and the minute she saw the elevator door open she cried like the world's supply of milk had suddenly dried up. The good news is that toward the end of the trip we finally determined that bouncing her up and down and waving and singing to her the entire ascent or descent distracted her sufficiently.
Back in our room the baby continued to cry for 15 minutes more as she couldn't seem to get over her first elevator experience and this is when we decided to order room service instead of going out. After a wonderful meal from Don Ho's restaurant (courtesy of "Room Service in Paradise") we burned the midnight oil until nearly 8:30pm and retired for the evening. As an aside, Hawaii time is 3 hours earlier than California this time of year and 2 hours earlier in the winter as they do not observe the mainland tradition of falling back and springing forward. I theorize that as fall and spring have no meaning, they decided that summering back and summering forward made no sense.


The next morning we arose earlier, each went for a run, and then had breakfast at the wonderful Hau Tree restaurant next door. This restaurant was situated right on the beach with a very large and nicely trimmed tree serving as the roof. After breakfast we drove out to the east side of the island and hiked the Kuli'ou'ou tree (aka Top of the World) which was very steep, slippery, rooty, windy, and beautiful. This probably wasn't the best trail for infants; I fell 3 times while carrying her, but boy were the views from the top spectacular. While we've hiked many wonderful trails and seen may excellent sites in Hawaii this one offered by far the best single spot to catch a view. Unfortunately because it was so high and the mountain around it descended so quickly in every direction the wind also howled at the top. This meant of course that Claire threw another fit (I can't blame her for this one) and we had to hurry down to a lower viewing spot that wasn't so windy. We spent the rest of the day at Lanikai beach and again retired to our hotel room for an early dinner. Just as we started going to bed we had the pleasure of listening to Sheryl Crow serenade us from just outside our window. No, our fellow guests weren't blasting music, the actual ex-miss Armstrong was playing across the street in an outdoor amphitheatre. As she continued on about all she wanted to do, we dozed off and began dreaming of our next adventure.

The next day was equally pleasurable. Running in the morning, a walk on Waikiki beach where we ate breakfast and watched a moray eel, a lovely lush waterfall hike to Manoa falls, some more beach time, and a stop at the Dole plantation where we let Claire lead us through the world's largest Maze. With over 3.11 miles of paths and a giant pineapple in the middle, the maze took us nearly one hour to traverse (56 minutes to be exact). Interestingly enough, they record everyone's time as they enter and leave the maze and they claim someone finished in 5 minutes. While I find this hard to believe, who am I too argue with one of the world's leading producers of pineapple? Besides, they make excellent pineapple floats (Pineapple juice and pineapple ice cream).

Monday was our last full day and we again ran in the morning, covered a lovely trail that took us to the top of the eastern most point on the island (Makapu'u head). This point was significant because its geography made it an excellent location to fend off kamikaze attacks during WWII. The top was littered with old barracks and with the right imagination one could easily reenact a high-stakes Pacific battle. After the hike we got ourselves some Shave Ice (no trip is complete without it) and headed to Kailua beach where I failed to properly apply sunscreen. Its not that I didn't apply it, I just didn't apply it properly. Normally Sarah would apply it to my back, but I think she must have been feeding the baby or something when I decided to do it myself. The next morning I had a very interesting strip of red across my back, with clear delineations where my fingers had been able to reach. We capped off the day by heading out to Duke's Canoe Club for dinner (our first evening meal away from the hotel room) where aside from the nice views, fun atmosphere and great food, I discovered the very tasty Hawaiian Itch cocktail.

As all good things must come to an end, so did our trip. On Tuesday morning after running along the beach one more time, we grabbed some breakfast and headed to the very secluded Kahala beach for a nice picnic. It was here where we decided to dip Claire's feet in the ocean for the first time. While we thought she would scream, she did not. She actually really enjoyed the experience and this gave us hope that she'll soon enjoy Hawaii as much as we do.
As we returned to the airport and returned our car (which was "excessively dirty" according to the lady who assessed us a $50 charge for sand on the floor mats) we began reflecting on our trip and dreaming of the next one. Oh but don't worry, there's still a poop story to tell. The flight to San Francisco is 4.5 hours long and although it was the middle of the day, Claire slept for the first 4 hours of it. Right about the time we were descending through 25000 feet I felt something warm on my leg that kept growing and didn't stop until it had wrapped my entire thigh. Oh no I thought, Claire's pee has leaked. Wrong, it was too dark. Poo, lots of poo all over my lap. It was probably the biggest (in terms of volume) poo she's ever had, but I guess as she grows so do her bowels. Aloha!

Super Claire

All right, let's try to write a blog post that does NOT mention anything about poop. This week we hiked in Uvas Canyon park where the waterfalls are flowing this time of year. Claire is still very much into trees, and she spent most of the hike staring upwards again. We had a good laugh when we passed another couple of hikers who commented "he sure likes the trees". Claire was wearing all pink and sucking on a pink pacifier at the time so initially we thought they were talking about Brian but no, apparently our daughter must have looked rather like a boy! Gender confusion aside though, we really enjoy our encounters with other hikers. Everyone loves to gawk at Claire, and plus we always get somebody to take a family photo of us.



The weather has been so nice we've been picnicking and napping outside every chance we get. Sarah has also been spending her afternoons in the garden while Claire watches the ferns sway in the breeze. It's incredible how simple things can really catch her eye, more so than her fancy baby toys. Even a kleenex can be intriguing and can provoke excited kicking and cooing when waved in front of her face. More and more Claire is demanding to be propped up in sitting so that she can keep an eye on us. She is also practicing countless numbers of mini sit-ups when reclined, which must be preparation for sitting and rolling.

Claire appears to be ending her bottle boycot and is now willing to take a bottle once a day. Thank goodness! She is also sleeping 6 consecutive hours at night (in her own room now) which we attribute to her successfully finding her thumb (see photo). This doesn't mean there aren't any fits though. If we don't get her a warm bottle in a timely fashion, she explodes in her classic style. So we have initiated a "Super Claire" protocol which seems to calm and distract her long enough to prepare a bottle for her. A video of this process is posted below. Keep in mind that this is just preliminary and we will add theme music and super-baby attire in the future if it continues to prove effective.

We have Liftoff

In an event not very similar to that of the Somalian pirates holding an American Captain captive in a lifeboat with a Naval ship breathing down its neck, after a roughly 80 hour standoff, Claire has freed both the Captain and all of his crew by blowing out 3 consecutive diapers. These events all took place within a span of 2 hours and happened so fast that some onlookers had to ask "Could that be what I think it is in her belly button?".... I guess we're lucky we didn't have to wait 7 days as one of my coworkers said happened with his daughter. When asked about the events of the last few days, Claire neither confirmed nor denied that her lack of poop was an act of defiance. Instead she simply smiled and continued talking to the ceiling fan.

Poop Watch Day 3

Any good christian knows that Easter marks the end of a period known as Lent. It is traditional to choose a vice or something less than holy to give up during the 40 days preceding Easter. Most people choose things like Chocolate, Alcohol, Cigars, etc. but I guess it takes a few years of life and some influence by the rest of the human race to know what is a proper thing to give up for Lent. In Claire's case, it appears she decided to give up pooping. However, the other concept she hasn't figured out is that after Lent is over it is okay to resume consuming Chocolate, drinking your Alcohol, or hanging out in the Cigar shop with your buddies. It has now been 3 days, yes 72 hours, since Claire's last successful bowel movement. If this happened to me, I'd be downright grumpy and likely be walking around very awkwardly. Although Claire doesn't walk, she's happy as a clam right now. And to use the same word twice in two consecutive sentences, her intestines must be clammed up good right now. ... but wait, all the baby books we read tell us that it is quite normal for babies to go several days without a bowel movement. This is in stark contrast to the 45 poops she used to take everyday, so you can see why this might be cause for concern for new parents like Sarah and I. However, breastfed babies are rarely, if ever constipated and as their bodies and digestive systems continue to develop, they become very efficient well oiled machines. (no pun intended). I'd like to boast that perhaps Claire is the world's most efficient human being. She is now able to extract 100% of the nutrients from Sarah's milk and simply excreet loads of water. I should point out that she is still wetting herself a million times a day. The other theory I have is that Claire isn't that special, but it's her mom (my beautiful wife) who is the one to be impressed by. Perhaps the milk that she produces is so perfectly formulated that any baby could easily and quickly digest every last vitamin. I'm thinking of selling Sarah's milk on Ebay touting it as a perfect baby formula that will completely eliminate the need for your baby to poop. Think of the way the world would be changed. No-one would ever poop again because we'd all continue to drink breastmilk for the rest of our lives. Doing some quick math, I think we'd save the world about 5 billion gallons of water a day, not to mention the amount of toilet paper saved (especially for those of you who use half a roll each time you go). The only problem with this solution is that Sarah would somehow have to produce enough milk to be the wet nurse for every human being on the planet. This would be hard, but I think she might enjoy it because she'd be able to eat all the Cheesecake and Meatloaf that she wanted.

Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa are now packing and getting ready to head back to the great state of Iowa, which to throw in some trivia, has now surpassed California to become the nation's second largest producer of wind power in the country (Texas is first). We had a great time with the grandparents, and Claire appeared to enjoy the extra attention. And now that I think about it, she was so caught up in the events of the weekend that she simply forgot to poop. Yesterday we all went and hike up Mission Peak in Fremont. Its a 6 mile hike round trip and involves about 2000 vertical feet of elevation gain. At the top there are sweeping views of both the bay area and the central valley. In retrospect, taking a 10-week old baby up a mountain that has so much wind that hang gliders launch from the top, was probably a bad idea, but she's still kicking and screaming today, so I guess it was okay.

For Easter, Claire got to wear her first dress as we all got prettied up and had a lovely brunch at the Cinnibar Hills Golf Club in South San Jose. With her dress, her pretty pink tights and the bow in her hair, Claire really did look like the belle of the ball and probably would have turned a few more heads if the boys in her age group were actually capable of doing so. Fine with me though, because before I know it I'm going to be fighting them off with sticks.

How about a post from Sarah for a change? This weekend we have grandma and grandpa Sivitz visiting us from Iowa. At 10 weeks old, Claire is entertaining them with her kick-boxing demonstrations and enthusiastic cooing. The cooing is enthusiastic up to the point that she realizes we don't understand a word she is saying, then she launches into high-pitched screaming to tell us that she "wants milk now, damn it!!". In our attempts to bottle-feed Claire to prepare her for daycare, we have discovered that she has gradually become very picky about the type of bottle nipple. Apparently the playtex silicone nipples "just like mom's" aren't at all just like mom's! In fact, they're so different she has felt obliged to spit the milk out of her mouth as she screamed like a banshee, rather than to give in and actually swallow some. We have since found a nipple that she seems to like, but feedings still aren't our favorite time of day. Bring on the advice all you parents out there!



As you can see we've been out hiking again, and this time Claire was actually awake and forward-facing in the baby-bjorn. She discovered trees during her journey and spent most of the time staring skyward. The other part of the time she spent staring down at the ground because she had nearly blinded herself from staring up at the sun. So it went, back and forth, gazing up then down with brows furrowed. We still think she enjoyed herself regardless, since she did not have to do an ounce of work during the 5 mile journey. I would be all over adult sized baby-bjorns if they made them. I just don't know who would volunteer to carry me...

You're probably wondering what Claire and I do all day while Brian is at work. The video below pretty much sums it up. You're going to have to watch it sideways since I am unable to rotate it! Anyway, aside from her friend Mr. Fan, there's also Mr. Projector, and Mr. Shelf with whom she converses every day. It makes for a busy schedule, so now you know why I don't have time to answer my cell phone or respond to email messages.