Man of Science; Man of God

Wow. Found this draft from last June and figured it was time to finish it.

 People tell me everyday that my boys look so much alike. Some even ask if they're twins. I smile and say, no, they're 2 1/2 years apart, and silently add also they're about 1 1/2 feet apart as well so unless you're thinking of an Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny Devito scenario you need to have your eyes checked. But they do definitely look like brothers. And act like it, too.

But the differences are also pretty stark. Keahi, from a young age, always asked questions. About the planets. About rocks. About the world around him. He always wanted to know things. He's always known he was going to be a scientist when he grew up and I believe him. Jarom also asks a lot of questions. And says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. But, from the questions he asks, I'm thinking he'll go into theology rather than the sciences.

"Mommy, how do we defeat Satan?"
"Mommy, I think bad guys started out as good guys but chose to be bad."

It used to catch me off guard; Keahi's focus of science certainly hadn't prepared me for it. It's not that we don't talk about the gospel in our home, but from all of Jarom's gymnastic endevours during said FHE lessons, you'd never know that he was actually listening, let alone thinking about what was said. But somehow he really does think about it.

If I was busy with something downstairs while they were going to read scriptures, Jarom would yell down for me and insist that I not let go of the iron rod. When Keahi was sent to timeout for hitting him, Jarom wanted to show him mercy because, "that's what God does. He shows mercy and then helps people to become righteous." When my sister came to visit with her kids, it was Jarom who tried to get his cousin to come to church or pray with us at night. "If you say the prayer you get to pick to bedtime song." "Don't you want to come to church with us? It's fun and we get lots of treats, too!" I swear I didn't prompt him or encourage him.

Another aspect of Jarom's religious ponderings is that he doesn't just say he wants to be a missionary like his brother does automatically. When Iz asked the boys about it, Keahi immediately says of course he's going to serve a mission. And that's great, don't get me wrong. But Jarom pauses and answers that he thinks it must be really hard to be a missionary and sometimes he's really shy but he's still thinking about it. Pretty mature for a five year old.

I love seeing the differences in my boys. I love thinking about how they came from me and are literally a part of me, but they are still separate and whole and wholly Other. They surprise me, amaze me, frustrate me, delight me. I'm so glad I get to be their mom. And now Mie's, too.

Well no wonder Keahi has a big ego

I'm always amazed at all the kids I see waving furiously at Keahi and shouting out to him from far away. Now that he's in third grade GATE and fourth grade math this year, the number of kids who know him has exploded. He's generally pretty aloof with them so I don't know quite what makes them all like him so much. But here's an example of this strange phenomenon.

I was walking behind Keahi as he rode his bike from school to the park beside it when two boys came up beside me and yelled out bye to him. They asked if I was his mom and then we chatted a bit about him. One was in his 2nd grade class and the other was in his 4th grade math class. The older boy said they were all amazed when they found out how young he was and how he always knows the answers and that he probably knew even more than their teacher. Then when we were at the park that boy asked Keahi to ride his bike for a bit. Afterwards, I overheard those same two boys talking about Keahi some more while Keahi was off riding his bike.
"How do you know Keahi? He's in MY class."
"But he comes to MY math class."
"I know him better than you do."
"No, you don't!"
"Do you know when his birthday is?"
"No. But he was born in 2004."
"Well, I know his birthday and I'm going to his party."

Wow. They were seriously arguing about who knew my kid better. Glad he didn't hear it.

Then a couple weeks later I had a chat with Keahi's primary teacher. We were all sick so had stayed home from church but I went for a bit to do my Sister Friendly calling in primary. She told me she was sad that Keahi had missed church because she had made a big deal about all the kids that had been baptized the day before. And then she let drop the bomb that I can't believe any teacher--or parent for that matter--would say. During her testimony she apparently asked the congregation who they thought was the smartest kid here and then informed them that it was Keahi Temple. I don't know what else she said after she told me that because I was just stunned and again grateful that Keahi missed that one. And hoping none of the kids there were listening to her or wouldn't hold it against Keahi. Really, I don't know what she was thinking saying that.

But that just hammered home just why Keahi thinks so well of himself. He missed both of these conversations but how many others has he heard. Yikes. The new word of the day around here is HUMILITY.

Conversations and quotes to remember

I haven't felt like dealing with the error in the quote of the day formatting so it's been lacking for a while but I need to remember some of these gems.

Jarom recently took home four guppies from his class and has just named them: dinosaur, shark, barracuda, and little croc-ee. He said it was because he wanted them to feel good about themselves. And ferocious, too.

Today while I was nursing upstairs, Jarom suddenly started to cry. I found out that Keahi had elbowed him in the face after Keahi had told him repeatedly to be quiet during the show. Guess talking in a movie would be a bad move if you're with Keahi. I sent him to his room and comforted Jarom. While we were chatting, Keahi called out asking if he could come out yet. I said NO. But then Jarom said, "I wish Keahi could come out now." When I asked him why he said "That's what God does. He shows mercy to people and helps them to be righteous." Wow. Jarom is awesome. I used to say before Jarom was born that I would trade some of Keahi's smarts for some obedience from him instead. Jarom's not exactly the most obedient, but he is compassionate and I'll take that.

Jarom wrote a silly sentence at school. "My alligator turned into a magnatar." I asked him about it and he told me about how a star can turn into a magnetar and have big gamma ray burst. He said he learned about it from the Universe show. I guess his teacher didn't know what it was either because she incorrectly spelled it for him. I'm sure she thought he was making up a funny word. I think it's pretty cool that he knows about magnetars.

Jarom: Keahi you are the most awesome person in the family.
Keahi: No, Jarom. We're the same awesome.

The first couple of times Jarom had breakfast at school I sat with him to help him get used to it. Here's a conversation we overheard between a 1st grade boy (YB)and what looked like a couple of 4th or 5th graders (OB1 and OB2).

OB1 "Hey, are you doing your homework now? It's due today."
YB "I knoooow. But I was busy this week. And it's really easy."
OB2 "I know what you were doing. Sitting on the couch playing video games all week. Right?"
YB "No. I had a lot of parties to go to, okay."
OB1 "How many?"
YB "Like ten." (Wow. Quite the socialite for a six year old.)
OB1 "Well, you shouldn't play a lot of video games cause it makes you stupid."
YB "Yeah, I know that."
OB2 "Yeah. Video games make you dumb."
OB1 "Well, do you know what 50 times 50 is?"
YB "No. I'm only in the first grade."
OB1 "I think we were learning that in the first grade."
OB2 "No. I think we were in the second grade." (Wow. They're both wrong. How quickly their timelines gets messed up.)
OB1 "Hey, do you know what 50 times 50 is?"
OB2 "Ummmmm.....1500.
girl "No. It's 2500."
OB2 "Yeah. That's what I meant."
OB1 "Anyway, our teacher let us do advanced stuff. And she let us do extra work, too."
YB "Well, MY teacher lets us do extra work sometimes, too."

I love that these kids spontaneously ask each other math questions at the breakfast tables. And that they all knowingly nod their head to each other about the brain-sucking power of video games. Who are these kids? No wonder Keahi has found his own science geek circle of friends here.

And that reminds me of another overheard conversation at Keahi's old Las Vegas school. It wasn't as good as this one but I like the language standards. Keahi had to use the bathroom at his school before we could leave to go home so I was waiting outside for him with Jarom. Then, a group of older boys went inside and I immediately heard them complaining about the smell. Their disgusted words and noises quickly embarrassed Keahi who yelled at them to stop it and then yelled SHUT UP!! A shocked boy left the bathroom to tell me, "Your son just said the S-word." At first I was confused because Keahi doesn't even know the S_ _ _ word and I certainly hadn't heard it. Then the boy clarified, "He told us to S up!" Ohhhhh. Thinking back to the last time I visited Kahuku elementary as an adult and had a little six year old boy flip me off for no reason and tell me to F*%! off, I was pleasantly surprised by the cleaner language standards of this neighborhood. Of course, Keahi knows he's not supposed to say Shut up and I reminded him about it but inside I was kinda smiling.

Keahi was hovering over Mie trying to get her to smile and then he said, "Mie is the cutest baby in the world to me. And to our family. But to another family their baby is the cutest in the world. It's like stars. The closer they are the brighter they seem. The closer you are to a baby the cuter it seems.
It's not exactly a quote or conversation but I want to remember how the boys like to bow down in worship of Mie like they're ewoks and Mie is C3PO in Return of the Jedi. I think she'll get a kick out of it if they keep doing it when she's older.

Vocab Hilarity

I love that Keahi gets to go to the third grade GATE class. Aside from all the amazing projects and getting to be with the older kids, I'm always impressed with the vocab lists they get. I'm pretty sure when I was in the second grade we didn't learn words like catharsis and abomination and castigate. Plus, I really get a kick out of the sentences Keahi writes with these words. He's always disliked writing unless it was a long list of scientific facts so he never puts much effort into these sentences. Hence, sentences like "He is very callous." or "A hat is sometimes very capacious." Then lately he would tell me about how the kids were all making funny sentences about each other. He liked writing about Ethan. But I think the teacher started to discourage this so Keahi came up with E-man as the star of his vocab list. My sister and mom were both visiting when Keahi brought home this gem of a list.

I had a cathartic experience when I punched E-man.
The group met in a caucus and were talking like crazy about killing E-man.
To be a cerebral person you must ("learn a ton" was scratched out)eat E-man.
I catapulted E-man into the chasm.
I stole E-man's chattel which is a video game.
I chided E-man for saying that he's awesome.
E-man is circa 1,000,000,000,000 years old.
A citadel fell on top of E-man.
E-man has chronic brain loss.

And my favorite one because it's just so Keahi.....
I certify that I am awesome.

I wish I knew what the other kids brought home to their parents. Maybe in some other house people were in stitches over sentences about K-man.

Where's the Happy Medium?

So many people tell me that my boys (and now they include Mie) look so much alike. Some have even asked if they're twins....generally when they are seated; otherwise that two foot height difference would be glaring. I don't really get it. They look entirely different to me. But aside from their physical differences, their personalities are even more disparate.

When Jarom is given criticism or spoken harshly to he completely shuts down. His shoulders hunch inward like he's trying to hide and his face actually, physically, gets longer. He often tells me about one kid or another at school who was mean to him and constantly questions if he's liked by others. I'm always trying to boost his confidence and help him remember that kids often say things they don't mean and it doesn't make them not friends anymore. While other little boys usually shrug off fights he holds onto them and it makes him shy.

On the other hand, Keahi has no problems with his self esteem. With so many people telling him how smart he is all his life, his ego is rock solid. Last week at scouts, somebody spilled a bunch of popcorn outside on the sidewalk. When the leader told the boys to clean it up, they all gathered it up and threw it away. Except Keahi. He picked it up and popped it in his mouth. When the boys all went ewwwww-that's-so-gross, Keahi shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't care. It tastes good."

If that had happened to Jarom he would have shrunk in on himself and not participated in the rest of the activities. But for Keahi, nobody can shake his ego. On the one hand it drives me nuts when he always assumes he's right and won't take my word for it. And he's always been like that. No, really. Before he could talk, I taught him baby sign and he loved to grab my head and point it in whatever direction he wanted so he could sign to me about what he saw. Once he pointed and signed cat. I looked and told him, "No, it's a dog. It's called a chihuahua." He looked again, then looked back at me, shook his head, and re-signed cat. Even then, he thought he knew everything.

Of course, the upside of his belief in himself is he'll never cave to peer pressure. If anybody tells him smoking is cool, he'll give them that same look he gave me after assessing the catness of that chihuahua and tell them they're crazy for destroying their lungs. And because he values his mind so highly, he'll never use drugs. In fact, after watching some guys do some extreme biking on the ramps, he declared that he'd never do that because he could crack his head. So no worries about him taking extreme risks.

As for Jarom, his extreme sensitivity can also be his strength. Unlike his brother who seldom thinks about others, Jarom tells and shows that he loves you. I love his random hugs and whispered I Love Yous. I love that he is excited to see his sister every single time. He says, "She really is the cutest baby in the world to me." Once when he was upset about something I told him to look at his sister because she always cheers him up. But he responded that she was too cute for him to look at her when he was mad. He should only show her his happy face. He always tells Keahi that he's awesome and smart (probably not helping with his inflated ego). And at Costco he wanted us to buy some lilies because he said they were my favorite. Just think what a great husband he'll make someday.

I just wish the boys could rub off on eachother. If only Keahi could gain some of Jarom's compassion and Jarom could gain some of Keahi's confidence. Ah well, maybe Mie will be the happy medium.

Introducing Mie Ka'imi Temple

It's been 12 weeks since I fell in love with the newest member of our family, Mie Ka'imi Temple. For nine months I thought about what it would be like to have a daughter, dreaming about holding her tiny, fragile body while also trying not to think about it....just in case. It's a strange thing to love someone you haven't met. Fear and anticipation swirl together and make it difficult to breathe. Though the rib kicking probably has more to do with that. And then the day arrives.

With Iz only having one official week off, I kept coaching my baby girl that she needed to come on Friday evening or Saturday but no later. Considering Keahi was a week late and Jarom was induced on my due date with no dilatation or effacement, some might have been skeptical of my plan. But a friend who'd delivered her baby with hypnobirthing told me she had done the same thing. Successfully. And so did I.

That Friday morning at the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner stretched me to 4cm and asked if I wanted her to break my water. I emphatically declined. A little later sporadic contractions started and I kept telling my sweet baby Not yet, Not yet. Jarom and I enjoyed our regular park day with his class; the other moms were impressed that I was so relaxed while being at a 4. Afterwards, we went home and I cleaned up and did the floors, which seemed to increase the contractions so I lay down to slow it down. But by 4pm I decided it was time to get my husband home.

Of course, he can't just up and leave in the middle of everything but he made pretty good time, arriving home at about 5:30. We dropped off the boys at my visiting teacher's house (thank goodness for good ol vts), and rushed to the hospital--which is thankfully only 5 minutes away. We parked--not all that close to the entrance--and eventually discovered where we were supposed to go to sign in and do triage. After paperwork, urine sample, gown change, and monitors set up we had to wait an hour for them to decide how well I was progressing before they'd admit me. I heard a lot of groaning and grunting around me but I felt pretty comfortable and when they asked me my pain level I said maybe 3 or 4. In retrospect, that was probably a bad idea since at 7pm they sent me home. They said that because I was doing a natural birth there was no reason for me to be here until the contractions lated more than a minute and were 2 minutes apart. Ummmmmm....does that seem fishy to anybody else? My third kid and I'm supposed to wait till when? Ooooookay....So I changed back and we headed home where I lay on my couch doing my hypnobirthing breathing and Iz kept a steady supply of hot towels on me.

For two hours.

That's it. After two hours, I insisted we head back to the hospital. The nurse that had sent me home with a cheerful hope-we-see-you-back-tonight was in for a surprise to see me back so soon. This time around, walking to the car was almost impossible and that five minute drive seemed like an hour. Walking into the (wrong) entrance was unbearable and forget about relaxing breathing techniques. I was barely holding on while Iz ran around searching for a wheelchair to take me back up to triage. Bless him, the only one he found had only one arm rest and no place for my feet so I had to hold them up while he rushed me about. That same nurse ever so calmly instructed me to provide yet another urine sample, change, and get into a bed so she could hook up the monitors again. I tried to tell her I needed a room now but she had to follow procedure. Well, when she finally got around to checking me her tune suddenly changed to one of panic. Now it was all FIND HER A ROOM! CALL THE DOCTOR! And they rushed me out of triage and into a birthing room. Having had epidurals in the past, I had never experienced the need to bear down. Until then. I didn't care that they said to wait. I didn't care that they kept shoving papers in front of me to sign--seriously?now? I didn't care about anything other than I had to push. And ten minutes from the time I was checked at triage, our baby girl was born. The doctor got there just in time to catch her head which was already out and help slide her out. After that I was basically lost to the world. I think Iz said he had to check to make sure I was still breathing. I faintly heard someone say congratulations and what a beautiful baby girl and I felt when they put her on my chest; but I really couldn't move a muscle. I think I was barely conscious. Don't remember ever seeing the doctor at all before he was out the door. My signature on the rest of the paper work was only slightly less shaky than the one I HAD to sign before pushing. But when I did recover my senses, I saw my perfect angel.

Mie Ka'imi Temple was born at 10:30pm on Friday, January 13th, weighing just 6lb 14oz and 19inches long. And she's perfect. No, really.

Because I wasn't in the hospital long enough to receive a full dose of the antibiotics (yet another reason they should have let me stay the first time), we had to stay a full 48 hours so they could watch Mie and make sure she wasn't infected. Melissa and Beth watched the boys all weekend for us while we got acquainted with our newest joy. I think we were pretty sick of hospital (and the food) by the time they let us go late Sunday night. Especially the boys who were brought to us at lunch time and had to hang out in the hospital room for about 8 hours or so. But how can anyone be board with this little one around. Of course, Keahi pretty much played on the iphone the whole time. I guess he's over being a big brother since he's been one for years. But Jarom has been thrilled in his new role and I'm so proud of the way he looks out for her. I love my family.