Keahi is 4!....and one month

I know it's been over a month but I need to document this very important milestone: my kid turned 4! I have a 4 year old! So enough about me. On to the birthday boy.

Weeks before I asked Keahi what he wanted for his birthday and his first request was to have a birthday card made for him by a friend. His next request was for Jada Johnson to fly over for his special day. He last 2 requests were to go to the Bishop Museum and to eat Japanese food. Well, I think delivering 3 out of 4 birthday wishes is pretty good. We had a wonderful time at the Museum with the awesome Animal Grossology exhibit filled with slime, a burping/tooting anamatronic cow, owl pellets and all the creepy-crawly things a little boy's heart could desire. Sadly, this was our second visit there and we didn't take many pictures. So here are a few from our first visit.

After a hearty lunch of ramen, tempura and gyozas, we headed back home to rest and get ready for cake and icecream with friends. The cupcake caterpillar was actually another of Keahi's requests after he saw the cake decorating magazine my mother bought. I have never looked at one of these magazines let alone touched a decorating bag before so I was a little nervous at my first attempt to make a real birthday cake. But I gotta say, it turned out pretty well. There was actually supposed to be a "The Best Ever Chocolate Cake" recipe cake for the adults but after 2 failed attempts that dragged into the 2am hour, we gave up and went to Ted's Bakery for a scrumptious and effort-free pineapple macadamia nut cheesecake. So tasty.

Keahi had fun with friends and so did we. I think we were all amazed at his pile-o-gifts that numbered more than me and all my siblings got in our childhood combined. I had to privately warn Keahi not to expect the same thing next year when we weren't living with popo. He got playhuts, t-ball sets, trains, clothes, thomas slideshow books and more. I think he may be disappointed when Christmas comes and he gets a book and pajamas. But I could just rewrap some of his birthday gifts and he'd never know the difference.

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So after 4 years of living and learning, I turn to Keahi for pearls of wisdom and this is what I've learned. A 4 year old's stomach is impervious to blackened cupcakes as long as they're slathered in sickly sweet frosting. And we should all be as liberal as little kids in labeling people friends.

Mommy's Little Helper

I've been semi-trying to get back to a normal routine now that we're back from the Big Island--regular mealtimes, activities, etc. In this spirit when I went to shower yesterday morning I asked Keahi what activity he wanted to do until I was finished (instead of letting him roam around getting into trouble which happens when I'm lazy). He opted for puppets so he could make up a story to tell me when I came out. After some glorious alone time, I finally dragged myself out of the shower only to discover that I forgot to get a towel. Blast. The towels were all downstairs and Keahi has this fear of being on a different floor from me.

"Keaaaahi."
"Yes, mommy." Wow, that was amazingly prompt.
"Can you please do me a favor and get a towel from the triangle closet downstairs?"
"I don't see a triangle closet." Oh, boy. I guess I could air-dry.
"Mommy, I found a very big towel in the closet." Yes. And he didn't even freak out about going downstairs alone. And he even got me a towel.
"Thank you, Keahi. Just hand it through the door."
"It's very big, mommy. Look, it's almost as tall as me."

He walked into the bathroom holding up a terry cloth floormat. It reached his shoulders. I couldn't bring myself to burst his proud bubble and send him back for a real towel so I made do with the floormat. I guess when you're 3 feet tall you have a different concept of what BIG is.

Credit Card Rant

Okay, I'm sure American Express has many loyal customers. I'm just not one of them. Let me tell you why.

A little over a year ago I had about $200 credit on my account which I am still in the process of trying to receive. When a refund check was first sent out I was in Grenada and so called to see if it could be cancelled and either resent to me in Grenada or held until I returned to the state. That representative told me nothing could be done until I was back in the states. She was very rude. Then several months later a letter was forwarded to me saying that if I didn't respond quickly my money was going to be confiscated and issued to the state of my last known address. Upon calling back to figure out why this company was going to confiscate my money and why they couldn't just check to see that the first check was never cashed and reissue it, that oh-so-helpful representative informed me that she could not reissue a check without extracting it from my credit card account--effectively charging my account as if I had made a purchase in order to send a check for money that was already mine. I got a little miffed with her.

Finally when I return to Hawaii I again try to sort things out and eventually get the I-can't-do-anything-about-this-except-file-a-dispute-claim rigmarole. But at least I was told to expect a call within 7-10 days. That never happened. Okay, so I let it slide for a couple months. I have a life. But then, frustrated, I call again. After 40 min. of being on hold while she "researches" my account--in which she periodically comes back to me to politely ask, "Are you still there, hon?" as if she's surprised I haven't already hung up and given in to the fact that they're never gonna give me my money (only she doesn't realize that while my married name my be Temple, I'm still half Chinese and I was never going to forget that they owed me money)--she finally returns with the great news that a week before a decision had been made and a new check sent out that should be there in a couple of days. She even gave me the check number--such a nice touch. Like that makes it all tidy and official.

Of course, today after waiting longer that the prescribed time limit, I call back only to be told that another dispute claim will be filed and a decision made in 7-10 days. When I asked if someone would be calling me in those 7-10 days as was previously promised but never delivered, she told me that calling was not part of the protocol. Hmmmm. I've got a dispute claim number for this one, too. Anybody want it? I think it may be like the "code" Murray uses in Flight of the Concords to pay for company expenses. So I guess we'll see what happens in 7-10 days.

And I loved her personal response to my situation. So sympathetic. "We appreciate your business and I apologize for any inconvenience this MAY have caused you." May have caused. I think it's safe to assume that waiting a YEAR to receive a check is more than an inconvenience and I resent the implication that it MAY NOT have been an inconvenience at all. It felt like someone apologizing for hurting my feelings by saying "I'm sorry for any harm I may have caused." Where's the responsibility in that? Grrrr. Rant over.