Matisse In My Heart

We’re in Hawaii now.   It’s lovely here.   I mean, who ever went to Hawaii and said it was anything other than perfectly tropical in every way?  I wrote yesterday’s blog post while we were still in the plane.   I posted it while we were traveling to the resort in the car via my phone.   I was tired but we were all happy to have arrived.

This morning we were up early—4AM early—which wasn’t that early considering the six hour time change.   We had cinnamon buns, cereal and pineapple and then went back to sleep until the more reasonable time of seven-thirty.   We all went out to check out the perfect weather and scenery.  My daughter and son spent some time on a hammock right on the edge of the ocean sand.

My daughter and I went out on the sand to see what we could see.   I was trying to find something that she could do, experience, feel.   She can’t see the beautiful sights, pretty much at all anymore.   I found a tree I thought she could climb and took her back to shore.   She clambered up and told me after scouting the branches, “I bet I could sit here, look down at the sand and listen to music for an hour without getting bored.”

So I set a timer on my watch for an hour to see if she was right.   I went up to a bench and said hello to a man there.   He and I got to talking.   I was in the “Cigar smoking zone” where he had a cigar while his family got ready to leave after a week’s vacation there.   My daughter started talking to our new friend, Andy, now too.  

When my daughter makes a friend, she makes a friend.   She talked to Andy from the tree for yes, most of that hour she talked about.   Her brother got into the tree later and I got this picture of the two of them, as well as the rainbow off to the right.  

Andy is one of those adults that just gets children and can speak to them in their language.   One of the things we talked to Andy about was our dog.   He asked my daughter if she missed her.   My daughter very sweetly said, “I have Matisse in my heart.”  She talked to Andy until he had to leave and then made an appointment to meet back up with him later in the day.

We did a lot of pool swimming, ice cream sundae making, smoothie drink drinking (or the adult equivalent of smoothies).   We may go out for dinner and shopping.   My favorite sunglasses crashed and shattered, which would have distressed me to no end had I not bought multiple replacements of my favorite sunglasses at $5 from Wal*Mart when I found them last year.

I came in to write this post when I hear there were going to be tattoos.   I don’t know that I’m up for a tattoo.   My husband and daughter headed back out when they heard Nana had gotten one.

The Big Boy Update:  My son for a long times asked for, 'modesty' when he was changing clothes and didn’t want us to see him naked.   Uncle Bob told him recently that the word he really meant was, ‘privacy', not modesty.  Now my son uses the word privacy when he wants to get dressed.   The other day I told him I wasn’t moving as I was working on something, but I wouldn’t look at him while he changed.  He said, “yeah, but you can puh-tray me any time.”   I told him, “I’m not going to betray you, I’m finishing writing my blog post and am too busy to peek at you changing clothes.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter named her cane.   Aside from naming the very first cane, “baby cane” at the behest of her orientation and mobility teacher, she’s never wanted to name any of her canes.   She goes through them fairly frequently because she’s growing and has to get another cane that matches her height, just like children get shoes when their feet grow.   This cane, which happens to be blue and white, she decided was named, “Blueberry”.   She told me it’s because it was “freshly baked”, and while I’m not sure how that factors into the name, I’m glad she’s named her cane.   She’s starting to like to carry it with her now.