oahu: week 2, lest i forget.
but first, an update on back to work
i've just survived my second week back at work. big, big sigh.
it's not a very different world, per se. there's a new regime but what's expected of me is quite the same. and i'm pretty good at what i do. so it's the getting used to being around people other than my son and wife for 8 hours a day and accepting that time is not my own when i'm being paid to make a living. now that's harder than i imagined. also, it's the wading through the politics that i'm finding annoying. not to mention the fact that i have to pump at least once a day and almost all the small meeting rooms have a window, save two and they always seem to be occupied. so i go home completely engorged and there's not a lot i can do about it until i stop breastfeeding.
but at the end of the day, all of that is pretty inconsequential. i'm back at work and that's just life.
flashback to waikiki
our hawaii vacation feels like the sweetest of dreams now. the other day i found myself missing the most mundane of moments pushing z's stroller through kuhio drive in waikiki. so indulge me while i confess that our second week in honolulu was pretty much the same as the first: lots of beaching and lots of shopping. except it was just the 3 of us. and most of the time, it felt like we were the only people in the world. except when z called out to other people. he has this habbit of greeting strangers with syllables that sound like, "hey" and "hi." and only then were we forced to interact with the rest of the world. (after which, obsessively wipe z's hands where the strangers felt compelled to touch him. seriously. who touches other people's babies?)
hotel views
for the first 7 days of our stay in waikiki, we stayed at the courtyard by marriot, courtesy of my very generous dad. but because we got tired of lugging all of our crap from the hotel to the beach (a 15-20 minute, very cumbersome endeavour), and because we really wanted to use the kid's pool for z's sake, we moved to the sheraton. and it was totally worth it. check out the views from our balcony where the entire south pacific sighs and sighs as sea turtles forage near the shore.
last moments on the beach
i don't know when we'll be back in hawaii - or in any tropical beach for that matter. 4 months ahead is all i can project at this point, marking z's first birthday, when he either goes to daycare or the wife and i sacrifice our time and schedules to care for him. as i swirled z through the gentle morning currents of waikiki beach, i told him to remember the heat of the sun, the warmth of the sand between his toes, and refreshing tropical pacific he was swishing through. i told him to remember everything he is feeling in the moment. i told him to remember it in his bones so the feeling can sustain him through the gloomy winter that awaits.
as i look through our pictures, i begin to relax into my long weekend. i'm utterly relieved. my bones remember the day too.
i've just survived my second week back at work. big, big sigh.
it's not a very different world, per se. there's a new regime but what's expected of me is quite the same. and i'm pretty good at what i do. so it's the getting used to being around people other than my son and wife for 8 hours a day and accepting that time is not my own when i'm being paid to make a living. now that's harder than i imagined. also, it's the wading through the politics that i'm finding annoying. not to mention the fact that i have to pump at least once a day and almost all the small meeting rooms have a window, save two and they always seem to be occupied. so i go home completely engorged and there's not a lot i can do about it until i stop breastfeeding.
but at the end of the day, all of that is pretty inconsequential. i'm back at work and that's just life.
flashback to waikiki
our hawaii vacation feels like the sweetest of dreams now. the other day i found myself missing the most mundane of moments pushing z's stroller through kuhio drive in waikiki. so indulge me while i confess that our second week in honolulu was pretty much the same as the first: lots of beaching and lots of shopping. except it was just the 3 of us. and most of the time, it felt like we were the only people in the world. except when z called out to other people. he has this habbit of greeting strangers with syllables that sound like, "hey" and "hi." and only then were we forced to interact with the rest of the world. (after which, obsessively wipe z's hands where the strangers felt compelled to touch him. seriously. who touches other people's babies?)
hotel views
for the first 7 days of our stay in waikiki, we stayed at the courtyard by marriot, courtesy of my very generous dad. but because we got tired of lugging all of our crap from the hotel to the beach (a 15-20 minute, very cumbersome endeavour), and because we really wanted to use the kid's pool for z's sake, we moved to the sheraton. and it was totally worth it. check out the views from our balcony where the entire south pacific sighs and sighs as sea turtles forage near the shore.
last moments on the beach
i don't know when we'll be back in hawaii - or in any tropical beach for that matter. 4 months ahead is all i can project at this point, marking z's first birthday, when he either goes to daycare or the wife and i sacrifice our time and schedules to care for him. as i swirled z through the gentle morning currents of waikiki beach, i told him to remember the heat of the sun, the warmth of the sand between his toes, and refreshing tropical pacific he was swishing through. i told him to remember everything he is feeling in the moment. i told him to remember it in his bones so the feeling can sustain him through the gloomy winter that awaits.
as i look through our pictures, i begin to relax into my long weekend. i'm utterly relieved. my bones remember the day too.