Home Sweet Toilet Paper-Free Home

Stumbled into the beach house probably less than an hour after the owners left...yeah, we were kinda in a hurry...and tripped headlong into a home with no toilet paper, weird food in the fridge, and some kind of bridge/railing type contraption built in the transition from backyard grass to beach. If you focus on the key word being "beach" then I suppose you can forgive the no toilet paper thing, amoungst other supposed transition infractions.

Home feels good, but not as good as gone felt, and not in any holiday sense, but more in some inarticulate "re-creation" way. In Hawaii we were new people. That's hard to fall away from.

So how is it that you can be restless mere instants after what many would call the trip of a lifetime? Sure, there's the standard lingering excitement and subsequent longing from a journey like that, but there's also the awakening such enterprises cause, and that's what's fueling this toilet paperless fire this morning. We can do better.

It's not that we don't love what we have, we do, and it's not that we don't consider ourselves wildly fortunate, because we do. It's just that we've woke up and noticed that not every day needs to look the same, in fact, shouldn't look the same. Like when you were in high school and you thought it was the best thing ever and then you got to college and high school sucked and then you left college and you realized how even that wasn't all that cool in comparison with being a full on independant adult...and on and on and on...nothing revelatory, just standard issue "oh, I see" type stuff. You know, take your sunglasses off for a minute and you'll see the colors much more clearly. Hawaii wasn't a once off, or a dream destination, it's just a destination with regular flights from a dozen different places. We can do better.

But alas, for now, we're back and getting comfortable and watching Zo settle into everything that she used to know. A couple of good friends stopped by last night and everything seemed easy enough that we could take a deep breath and sigh...until Zo went to bed. She's still struggling with the transition from being wrapped up tight to not being wrapped at all, plus there's the whole "Do I live in Hawaii or Canada," thing which I'll admit has to be confusing. Toss in the three different beds in as many nights and I think she's supposed to have a hard time adjusting. Oh, and there's that dodgy jet lag issue too, I suppose. We'll just hold on tight for a few days and hope some consistency helps her out. What hasn't abated in the meantime is her separation anxiety, in fact, it's only worsened to include the occaisional bout with her Dad as well. I guess that's what living together in the same room for a month will do? I understand that it's normal, and that it will pass but you can't help but wonder if your parenting in exactly the right manner when your child loses their mind here and there. Last night Zoey looked like the most frightened kid on the planet when we let her cry it out, and just as we relay to others, she's as stubborn as it gets and can last a full hour with nothing accomplished but hives and a booger beard. Last night, the first night in the house, might not have been the best time to test out the Hootie method of parenting, "Let her Cry" should sometimes simply remain a song title and not a parenting lesson.

From this point forward I'm telling everyone we know well in advance to stop it...we're not in the market for parenting advice, even the good hearted kind. We're choosing to be aware and responsive parents...balanced ones at that...so Zoey will cry a little and be nurtured a lot and we'll likely ignore you more than her. How's that? Don't like it? Well, in Hawaii no one gave us parenting advice AND it was beautiful and amazing and fun and...endless and...so we can always find our way back there. I'd say so far we're doing a pretty good job. If there's a debate then I know a place where the sun shines every day and the only discussion is whether we eat sushi for dinner or maybe go watch the sunset over Ewa and eat late?

Just typing that makes me miss Hawaii, or maybe it's the being gone part? Either one feels better than no toilet paper.