"I hate Daddy"

We camped with Maia's Girl Scout troup (and several others, all of older girls) over the weekend of Friday, June 10, 2011, at Ho'omaluhia Gardens--a beautiful park on the Windward side of the island, not too far from Kaneohe. Jessica, my brother's daughter, is spending a couple of months with us this summer and went with us.

Maia has always liked Jessica and became really attached to her over the last two months. This is the two of them on the first day. And this is at breakfast and at other times on the next day.







Jessica was a big hit with the other girls, too.

We went on a hike on Saturday afternoon. It was rainy, but the terrain was beautiful.



On the way back to the camp, though, Maia and I butted heads. The brother of one of the girls had teased Maia about having bacteria in her shoe. I realized later that the two of them had been flirting, but all I thought of at the time was that she needed to put her shoe back on. The road was wet, and I didn't know what she might pick up from it or step on.

She resisted putting the shoe on. I insisted, and she finally put it on. But it took a good couple of minutes of struggle.

When we got going again, Maia dropped back with Kristina, and I recognized that I should leave the two of them alone. Later, Kristina told me that she had said, "I hate Daddy." Kristina said she felt like saying, "I hate him, too, sometimes."

I wish I was better at this.

That evening, I told her that I was sorry that we had had the problem, but that it was my job to make her angry at me sometimes. I don't think she bought that, but she did tell me that she forgave me.

These are pictures from Sunday, our last day of camp.









So precious, these children.

One of Maia's summer school homework assignments was to make sentences using words from a word list, including the word, "fortunate."

She wrote, "My parents are fortunate to have me."

Funny.

John, Thursday, June 30, 2011

Cocoa, the "Horg"

This morning, Maia said that Cocoa was a "Horg." A cross betweeen a horse and a dog, she explained.
She thought that this was hysterically funny and laughed in that infectious laugh of hers. She was straddling Cocoa and pulling her ears back as though they were reins.
Cocoa just yawned big and wagged her tail.
She is kind of a "Horg," the way she gallops around.

John, Thursday, June 2, 2011