Pure Manaʻo

The older the kids get, the busier we are. Some nights, there are at least three of us on separate computers - but there's one conversation that always takes place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday: "Have you read the latest Nemu?" We are all in love with the local web comic Nemu Nemu about two magical plushie pups Anpan (like the bread with bean paste) and Nemu (like nemutai - sleepy). Anpan is the more kolohe one and Nemu is the sweeter one. Anpan loves pizza and Nemu loves cookies and grill'd cheese sammich and PB&J. They are totemo kawaii (too cute)!

I'm not very good at producing readers, except for my youngest who had a goal to read a million words by the end of his school year and he made that amount by the end of September. Hey, he's a 5th grader, not much social life at that age. Still, even if the other two aren't reading for lifers, it seems writing and poetry run in the family. Ahi participated in a local event called 16 Bars (he tells me that's a typical length of a freestyle rap). He's not a rapper, but he likes to write slam poems which could sound like rap, but they aren't restricted by a certain beat and they don't necessarily rhyme as much. Long story short, there were 4 boys from Kamehameha in this round and they were all poets (boys + poets = one happy English teacher - even if I only taught 3 out of 4 of them). The guys were judged by the emcee and one mystery judge, and audience response was factored in. Ahi was one of the two that moved on, but the other two have a chance to battle o...

Our family is on the Wii Fit train, which just means that we found an excuse to play the Wii on school days. Basically, the Wii Fit is a plank or board that you stand on and it weighs you, tracks your BMI and basically tells you that you're either obese, overweight, normal or underweight. Warning, if you have a large TV (ours is pretty decent), in large letters, this machine will show your weight and BMI. If you're like the majority of my family, it will also tell you "that's obese!" in a cutesy, irritating, little girl voice. Not only that, but indignity upon indignity, your mii (your character on the game) will turn fat!! Once you are done yelling at the tv ( "no S&%#, you think I do know I fat?!") it encourages you to train by choosing exercises like yoga, strength, aerobics and balance "games." The only person that is normal in our family is Ahi, and lazy buggah actually figures out how to cheat so that he is the only one not breaking...

Although I never want to talk about it, and I won't again, I'm psychic. Not psychic in that Allison Dubois way (the character in Medium, who happens to be a real person), but in the way that most parents, especially moms, are psychic. We are so in tune with our children that it allows us to know some things even though we are normally clueless. I don't know why it's more prevalent in mothers, but in my experience, it is. My mother has keyed in on me whenever things have been especially horrible for me. My anguish has woken her up. But she's not the only one. One afternoon my husband and I were outside and we both heard our son's voice call, "mom!" It was the voice of pain and fear. I looked at him and said, "did you hear that?" My husband said yes, it was our oldest boy who was at boy scout camp. We got into the car and started driving from Hilo toward Honokaa. When we got the phone call, Isaac was already on the way to the emergency roo...

One of my colleagues sent me this link. Dalton Sherman is a 5th grader who talked to 20,000 educators in Dallas. When the occupation keeps getting slammed, when the budgets keep getting cut, educators need to believe that what they are doing matters. And it does.

Ken and Pono, our youngest, come home from cub scouts and right away Pono says, "Mom, dad says I have to ask you." Me: Yes? Pono: What's afterbirth? (Of course I'm eating dinner, but Pono says, Dad said it's the sack for the baby. Did it hurt? Me: Did having you hurt? Yes. Did the afterbirth hurt? No. Where is this coming from? Is that what you guys were talking about at cub scouts? (Ken's the pack leader - I know he was spending this afternoon trying to figure out what he was covering tonight, but come on.) Pono: You know that chant about Papa and Wakea? Me: Yes, (now Ahi's getting involved in the conversation from the other room, I hear him chanting) O Wakea noho ia Papahanaumoku Hanau o Hawai'i he moku Hanau o Maui he moku . . . Pono: The end of the chant says that Kaho'olawe is the afterbirth. I wanted to know what that was. Ahi: He 'ula a'o Kaho'olawe - oh yeah, I guess so, afterbirth. Me: H...

Finally a teen girl heroine who is not obsessed with boys, parties, gossip and money! ABC family's newest series, Samurai Girl is about Heaven, a Japanese princess (yeah, yeah, she has money, but it's not about that) that loses her brother when her arranged marriage in San Francisco is attacked by ninja hired by yakuza. She can't trust her own family and must reach out to an old friend and some new ones in order to survive long enough to avenge her brother's death and fulfill her destiny. Go girl power! Yes, the actress is not Japanese, she's Chinese (that bugs my husband, but that's Hollywood), but she is not afraid to kick some booty. We need more of these types of heroines with great diva shoes and the know-how to wield a sword.