Diamond Head Hike

Our good friends from Kirksville, the Jenks, are visiting Hawaii this week. So we were delighted to touch base with them and got to have them stay with us Sunday night. The girls were so disappointed when they got home today and found out they weren't still hanging around ready to play with them! 

The boys and I went with them to Diamond Head to do the hike this morning though... or at least that was the idea! They met up with the rest of their family so we beat them there and started a little bit before them. While it would have been fun to hike with them and chat a bit, I really relished the rare opportunity to just spend time with my little man. Max chilled the whole time, easy peasy. Except lemme tell you-- that kid has put on a few! Holy crap, I need a massage!

Roman, on the other hand, was a little chatterbox. At first he was very worried about our friends and wanted to wait for them. I didn't know how far behind us they were, but had a pretty decent idea that they would be moving a bit faster than we would anyway-- so I encouraged us to keep going. The entire hike up, he was either challenging me to run with him, to watch out for The Peoples (he's always very concerned about The Peoples. You just don't know about them.), to rest cause he was tired, to watch for Bad Guys in the tunnel, to look what he found right dere (generally speaking bits of garbage), or driving what he found right dere along the trail. Which got somewhat inconvenient for The Peoples coming and going up and down that narrow trail.  He wanted me to take pictures of him-- because The Peoples had their cameras out and it looked like a pretty good idea. I didn't bring ours, so all I had was my little camera phone- hence the subpar quality. Maybe I shoulda done some cool edits to mask that.  Meh. It's late.

He liked this thing here on one of the lookouts. Kept calling it a boat. Not sure where he got that idea, but ok. 

When we got to the top, The Peoples who had passed us on the way up congratulated him on making it, exclaiming, "Good job little guy! You made it!" At which point he threw the same over his shoulder to me, "Mom, we made it!" Such a trooper. When we got to the bunkers at the top, he naturally had to run all over and look everywhere and climb on top of everything. This is his victory dance after his best climb.

He was pretty proud of himself.

Climbing back down required pictures as well. The highest lookout has steep, almost ladder-like stairs. On the way back down them some guy offered to help Roman down. Not interested. Off he went, down those ladderstairs all on his own. I turned around in time to see the guy lifting his 6-7 year old son down. Huh.

"Mom, we can't get in it, cause it's lucky water, huh."
(Yes, he says "lucky" for "yucky". I love it so much.)

He was also carefully examining his little treasures he'd found on the trail and was decently concerned about dropping them in. I of course reinforced that concern by informing him that if they fell we'd have to leave them because the water is too lucky to get them out. 

He got down pretty quick after hearing that. 

We met Amy & Jeff & some of their family on the way back down and it was fun to chat with them briefly as well. Roman was pretty happy we got to talk to our friends, but was annoyed we couldn't ride in their car with them. (They were in a van. Like a 15-20 seater I'm guessing since they had around 18 people there. Yeah. I don't think we'll get to ride with them.)

He was ok once he remembered we got to ride in the lobster car, though. That's pretty cool. 

Poor Max was so tired-- I turned him around in the baby carrier so he was facing in about a quarter of the way back down and he went straight to sleep without hesitating at all. 

My favorite part of the hike? Having the time to enjoy going slow and letting him explore. To see what things would catch his attention. What little treasures he found or special little wonders he noticed. Like the little cave in the wall "for garbage". Or the "boat". Or his attitude towards all The Peoples. I feel like I've been so rushed lately, trying to cram so many things into our lives, so much play time or beach time or whatever that I don't have time to enjoy my kids. My goal right now is to slow down a bit. Learn to say "no". Not try to do everything or invite everyone. Not try to run faster than I have strength.