Randy+Brooklyn: August 2018

It has been a time of celebration as our good friends, Zach and Jenny, got sealed in the Laie temple! It was also a time for celebration because Ezra got a new carseat (forward facing). He LOVES being able to see us and out the windows. And while the novelty of this new item lasts Ezra has been more compliant about getting in (this only lasted a week or so) when we hit the road.

We also "celebrated" hand, foot, and mouth disease this month with are very own party at a remote beach with all of our diseased friends and their kids. I don't wish for anyone to get this ailment but it sure was nice having company through the course of it! Ezra only had to be mildly quarantined (nursery, church, parks,etc.) since half his buddies had HFMD too. He had such a mild case--it started with a moderate fever for a day (puked a couple times) and then moved into a red-dotted rash mainly on his arms and bum for a week.

Tis also the season for hurricanes! What an exciting month. Don't be fooled when people tell you Hawaii is an endless paradise. I jest--Oahu comes pretty dang close! But yes--hurricanes--or more like tropical storms for us. It seemed like the media was really hyping up hurricane Lane more than others in the past. My cynical side says they are trying to freak people out more than they actually should so we'll watch the news more but who knows! We did get some rain but it was funny to see that most people in our neighborhood were underwhelmed with the storm's delivery. I am not saying we are begging for a hurricane but when you get all hunkered down and ready you kind of expect to see some action. In the end, we are very grateful the storms were mild this year.

I've been taking bromocriptine (it drops my prolactin levels) to help me get pregnant again but didn't have as much luck with it as I did with Ezra (it only took me a month or two of being on the medicine to get pregnant). I'm not too worried--I have this feeling that the timing of our next sweet baby will be just right. I've decided to go off of the bromo for a while and see how my body responds (my prolactin levels are much lower/healthier than they were before). I can have periods on my own and even ovulate without the medicine so maybe my body doesn't need it? I am also breastfeeding still--I've wondered if that could be affecting hormones in a critical way.

Ezra truly is such a sweet kid though! I count my blessings I get to be his mother. He turns 2 soon and it's blowing my mind he is 20 months! He's got a nice routine going with walks/park in the mornings and going to the beach usually in the later afternoons after his nap. We have essentially been living at Stables (beach spot by Turtle Bay). You can drive right up to the beach (appeals to my lazy side) and it's right next to a barn and horses! And tons of shade (very important for such a fair-skinned baby.

A few other random tidbits: I just read a book called Boys Adrift and it kind of blew my mind (in a good way). If you have boys I would HIGHLY recommend it! The author also has a book titled Girls on the Edge which I plan to read next. The author is Leonard Sax and the other book of his I have on my list is The Collapse of Parenting. After reading Boys Adrift I couldn't stop talking to almost every mother I came into contact with at the park about the challenges boys face in American society--girls definitely have challenges too but they are different from boys--hence the book Girls on the Edge. One of the biggest takeaways I had was the need for us to approach their educational needs in different ways (e.g., possibly holding them back a year to start school or looking into boy-friendly schools). Sax clearly explains the differences in brain development by gender and how that affects their behavior in varying ways. In essence, your sex matters and our kids benefit when we pay attention to those differences. There is a part of me that would love to write a book report on this subject but today is not that day!