Hawaii, Part IV

The Bad

(Note: of course there is nothing truly "bad" about a 2 week vacation in Hawaii, but . . .)

On day 5 of our trip Vivian began experiencing some diarhea. I guess it was a bug, though my original assumption was an allergic reaction to something she ate. (Papaya? Purple sweet potato? Vanilla soy milk? An excess of sugary juice boxes?) She maintained this--shall we say, soft--consitution for the remainder of the trip (12 more days). Which meant we went through about a gazillion diapers. Does anyone really want to change 8 poopy diapers a day while on vacation? From one kid? Yuck.

True to form, however, she remained happy and non-plussed by the whole situation, until the end of our trip, when her diaper rash got the better of her. By that time her ass was red, raw and chapped. The Desitin we used made it sting, and she would just stare at me, screaming in horror and pain for what seemed like hours after every diaper change. My poor sweet girl! We took her in the ocean one day around that time, too--talk about pouring salt into your wounds. Oops. Finally we procured some Bacitracin--that, combined with the eventual slowing of her digestive tract, cleared her right up. Also she spent some hours out by the pool in the nude, which--whether or not it helped--was pretty damned cute.



See?









Also at the end of the trip--right about the time Vivian's ass was getting better--Isaac mysteriously became feverish. He didn't have any other symptoms--just a fever--and motrin brought it down fairly easily. Once the medicine wore off, though, the fever would come back, and he'd get all glassy eyed and miserable. This first appeared on a Friday night and continued until Monday around mid-day. I gave him his last dose of tylenol in the airport. But since we would be home in a few days, and since as long as I kept the fever down he seemed pretty happy, I didn't bother calling the doctor. Once we got home, he developed a rash, and when I googled his symptoms, they pretty exactly match those for Roseola--so I never did take him in. He seems fine now. But he was pretty miserable for a little while.







Here he is before the tylenol kicked in.





For most of the trip Lance and I shared a bed with Isaac (we rented a crib for Vivian). We had a king size bed in Maui, and a queen on the Big Island. Isaac, for whatever reason, hates bed covers. Also, he must sleep in a horizontal position (as in, cross-ways). So, with Lance hugging one side and me squeezing in on the other, the three of us formed an H each night in bed. Not the most comfortable way to sleep, nor the most romantic. Especially since we were not allowed even the thinnest of sheets to cover us, or he would wake and demand sleepily, "No covers, Mommy! Nooo!"

The time change also made sleeping difficult, for no matter what we did Isaac refused to sleep later than 6am. Often he and his sister would wake, for the day, closer to 5am. This made both children incredibly fussy by lunchtime, after which they would nap for sometimes 3 or 4 hours. Long naps are great when you are at home and want to watch all your TiVo'd episodes of Bernie Mac, but when you're in Hawaii, there are often places you'd rather be around 4 pm than waiting for the kids to wake up. Like, say, the hotel bar for happy hour. Fortunately, both homes we stayed at were gorgeous, so it wasn't a true hardship to have to read some dumb mystery novel by the pool all afternoon. We did have some long days, though. And I'm sad to report that the time change has not worked in the reverse since we got home: the two munckhins are still up by 7:30 every morning. Sigh.

Here's another photo, taken on Sandy Beach on Oahu, just to prove how much all the complaining above is truly un-warranted:

But do notice the time stamp: in Hawaii Time it was 9:01 am and we had already been out on a 1.5 hour driving tour, stopped to have breakfast, and played on the beach for a long time before this phtos was taken. That morning we were up at 5.