Mama Sarahndipity: Hawaii Hangover

No, I didn't spend my time in Hawaii imbibing heavily, although I did partake in a fruity frosty happy hour beverage pool-side more than once. Take, for example the lava flow:

This kicky little number is essentially a pina colada, some banana, and pineapple juice poured over frozen strawberry sauce which then spreads out and up through the drink like, well, lava. The drink is scrumptious and I've been daydreaming about having one since I left Hawaii in '05 at the end of my honeymoon.

What is notable about this drink, however, is that it's in a cup made out of corn. CORN! Corn turns into plastic??!! Oh my head. I do believe this marks the end of my relationship with corn as a food product. Seeing "This cup was made from corn" on my plastic cup made of corn, I felt much like I did in middle school when someone showed me how to remove rust from my bike chains with diet freaking coke. There was something so off-putting and quease-inducing about the idea of putting something that can eat rust into my body. Why would I do that? Now, sadly, I feel the same way about corn. If it can be manipulated to the point that it turns into a plastic? I don't need it in my intestines. Oh, corn, how I will miss you (this is where someone with greater knowledge about the process than me chimes in to explain how this process is possible while still leaving corn as a viable food option because life for me won't be the same without corn on the cob. Someone? Halp!!!)

(also? yes, those are my feet! Hi, pool chaise! My feet miss you! Le sigh)

My hangover is not alcohol-induced at all, really. Just a good case of fun-fatigue. We landed yesterday evening at 6:45 and expected Ethan to be bouncing off the walls for hours into the night, given the time change. Instead, he passed out shortly after we reinstalled his car seat in my car and he took note of how mommy's car differed from our rental car in Hawaii. "Mommy's car is old and dirty." Thanks, kid.

The good news is that after years of sleep battles, Ethan transfers, in his sleep, from car seat to bed seamlessly. Thank heavens for small mercies. The bad news is he'd not eaten since about 8am Maui time. If you know Ethan even a little bit, you know he's not going to eat a bite of food that can be found on an airplane (but really who could blame him?!) and if you know Maui's airport, you know there was precious little we could purchase before getting on the plane to hold us over mid-flight. So he spent 4.5 hours eating chewy fruit snacks (the devil's food, I know; I am available to accept my "Mother of the Year" award any time) and graham crackers. And I knew that if he woke up at 4am, complaining of hunger, there was probably less food in our house than at the Maui airport. So I had to wake him up for a sandwich at 8pm.

Oh, bad, bad choice. Note to self: the advice "never wake a sleeping baby," extends up to, and includes, age 3. Oh holy hell, after he ate a few bites of sandwich, he was up until 11:30. Eleven thirty. Husband and I took turns trying to settle him and losing our patience until he finally passed out.

I assumed given how tough it was getting to Ethan to sleep, our energy would be sapped and we'd fall into a deep and dreamless sleep right away. But no. I was up until 5:30 this morning. Yeah, that's what I said. 5:30. In the morning. Oh. My. G-d. Seriously?

Part of the reason I was up? Trying to cope with kitty trauma. When we left for Maui last Friday, I'd gone through the house, intentionally to account for both cats. They like to play in the garage and sleep in closets, so I wanted to make sure they weren't stuck anywhere they couldn't get to food and water before we left for a week. I counted two kitties, one in the living room and one in the kitchen before we left.

When we opened the door last night, the first thing I heard was meowing. Loud, howl-y meowing, a tone somewhere between desperation and pissed the eff off. That, if you don't have cats, is really just not good. Not what you want to be greeted with as you walk into the house for the first time in seven days.

The plaintive cries led me to the linen closet, where, when I opened the door, I found Echo's big yellow eyes staring out at me (it was dark, he's black--he kind of disappears except for the eyes). He jumped out, ran to the litter box and then to the food and water dishes, giving me an earful the whole time. "Meow!!!! Do you have any idea how long I've been stuck in there?! MEEEEOW!" "Meow! I'm freaking STARVING! Meow!!" "Meow! And don't even get me started on my bladder!!! ME-FREAKING-OW!"

Poor kitty. Best I can figure, when my neighbor came in to feed them sometime in the past couple of days, one of her kids must have inadvertently closed the closet door while Echo was either sleeping or hiding from them. He had not, shall we say, used the closet as a bathroom, so he couldn't have been in there for "too" long, but poor, poor kitty!!!

My sweet little shelter cat, who came to me with probably only a few of his 9 lives left, definitely used up one more being stuck in that closet for who knows how long. Therefore, I spent most of the night letting Echo climb on me, curl up against me and tell me his long meow-y tale of woe over and over again, to reassure him that I wasn't going anywhere.

But that doesn't really account for 5:30 am. For the first time since I was pregnant with Ethan and was clobbered by pregnancy insomnia, I just couldn't sleep. Wide. Awake. Even when I put my book down at 5:30 and forced myself to close my eyes, I tossed and turned for I don't know how long. And given that we had a birthday party at a bounce-house play place at 11am, I knew today was going to be agonizing.

And it was. Loved the party and was so happy to see our friends--I was a chatterbox running on adrenaline for the first 45 minutes of it. But then my contacts started to burn in my eyes, and I found myself fantasizing about lying down in one of the bounce-houses and taking a nice long nap.

The rest of the day I marveled as Husband replaced the screen in our porch door and Ethan ran around in the back yard, both of them as though they were bright-eyed and refreshed after a long week lounging in paradise. Oh wait. They were bright-eyed and refreshed after a long week lounging in paradise. But I had to go and blow my bright-eyed and refreshed on a sleepless night. Gah!!!

I'm hoping to sleep until noon tomorrow and get a bit of that back.

Here are some more pictures from our time in Eden:

Lava fields at Bay Perouse: