traveling with baby: kauai, days three and four

Wow, I must be really sleep deprived. I just noticed that I capitalized the last two entries. Hello, editorial style consistency?

Have considered not blogging again the rest of the trip because I have truly sunk into vacation mode. But what then about posterity? Baby’s first trip. Must. Be. Recorded.

Items brought with which have so far not been used though they took up huge amounts of space: Breast Pump, Fancy Digital Camera. The latter is especially problematic since I don’t want anyone getting sunscreen or sand on it. Maybe we’ll use it tomorrow since we’re going to drive to Waimea Canyon (like Grand Canyon, but in Hawaii), which could be a clean hands and sand free activity. And as for the pump? Did I mention I’m on VACATION. Aside from hating to pump, I’m unclear when to do it since the boy’s schedule is all kaflooey, as is mine. He’s been waking up every hour from about midnight forward, and continuing to nurse hourly until his first nap of the day, which starts anywhere from 9 to 11 a.m.

Best meal: So far it’s a toss-up. Dinner last night was steaks and king crab legs that dad grilled here at the condo, with a radicchio and endive salad, and baked sweet potatoes. YUM! Tonight’s dinner was pretty good too. Fancy Hawaiian food (many things were “macadamia nut crusted”) at a place called the Beach House. We were seated next to the open sliding glass doors, right on the water, facing the sunset, which set perfectly on time, as we were finishing our entrees. The boy slept through the first round of appetizers, and then after the second round, while nursing, he had his first poop of the trip (Chez Panisse all over again). Scott and I galvanized quickly, grabbing boy and diaper bag and heading to the bathrooms. No changing table in either one. We asked the hostess who escorted us to a special secret back bathroom that had a fold-down table and we were all cleaned up and back in time to consume our still-hot seafood dinners.

Swimming: Although the boy has some truly handsome swim diaper shorts, the actual swimming is not his favorite activity yet. He LOVES the bath. Has taken three since we’ve been here (you could land a plane in our bathtub and am taking full advantage of this). But COLD water? No dice. We tried yesterday at the condo pool, which has a lovely shallow water’s edge shaped area for such an activity. And today we tried at the beach, which also had this shallow sheltered cove for baby swimmers. Was warmer than the pool, but still not warm enough. Every baby I saw swimming, I asked the parents and repeatedly the answer was 10 months. Must return in six months then.

The boy did show how much he loves his mother by falling asleep in the car on our way TO the beach, long enough that I got to do a little swimming. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the warm gentle ocean and soft sand here. I was so excited to swim, I kinda just put the boy down in the bucket in a shady spot with my dad and walked off with Scott to the water. No instructions, nothing. I figured the family next to him or the lifeguard next to them would help in an emergency, but I still had to go back about five minutes after I started swimming to apologize and check in. Everyone was fine, so I got to go back out for a bit more. Then the boy was up, and we tried the swimming with him, which was not so good.

There were two monk seals sunning themselves at the beach, with a huge area cordoned off around them. We saw one at the beach near our condo yesterday too. At first I thought it was dead, the rope area making it look like a sea animal crime scene. But no.

There must be some kind of task force that goes around creating these roped safe areas around the seals whenever they beach themselves for a nap. They need the protection, as they are almost extinct, and people need to be protected from them since they might bite.

Shopping: Yesterday we shopped again. Walked from our condo to the resort next door, a suuuuuuper fancy Grand Hyatt with a towering waterfall and a huge lagoon-shaped swimming area. I got a much needed post-pregnancy swim suit, in fetching island flowers motif.

We also perused the tables at the annual art fair, that happened to be just on that day. Didn’t buy anything there but we did take some free samples of local Kauai salt which we used to cook the steaks. Yummy. Today I didn’t shop but my parents went out for groceries and picked up a beach umbrella at my request which proved totally useless later because of the strong wind. Hello Mary Poppins.