We came back from your second Hawaiian vacation (lucky duck!) a few days ago. We made the brilliant decision to fly in and out of Bellingham instead of Seattle. Or, it was brilliant departing that way.
We stayed at your Aunt Nina and Uncle Jeff's house the night before in Bellingham, so we had a nice visit with them before an easy drive to the airport in the morning. Coming back, we didn't arrive until 11:30 p.m. Factor in the two-hour drive home and that made for a late night!
How did you kids do on the flights? Well, Matteo is at an easy age. You, not so much, but you did great. You sat in your car seat on the plane, which I think made you a lot more comfortable. I rented a couple movies so you got to watch two movies each way, plus some "Elmo's World" episodes. We basically zombied you with screen time, and that worked for everyone involved.
One of my favorite moments from the trip was watching you "swim" with a lifejacket. We stayed at a first-floor condo with a lanai (Hawaiian for "small porch") that walked right out to a shared community pool. You were awfully brave the first day we were there, wanting to constantly jump into the pool, making our hearts jump a little. We didn't bring any flotation devices (parent fail) so went straight to a dive shop to get a lifejacket for you. Once we got you in that, you were golden! You never got the idea of how to use your arms so you would basically flutter your feet to stay balanced and direct your drifting. You had a big cheesy smile enjoying your swimming freedom that we reflected back.
Your language continues to improve, and you picked up more words than I did Hawaiian slang. This has been the month of using pronouns and possessive pronouns. The English language is tough in this way. If we each have a cup in front of us, I have mine and you have yours, but you would say yours is "mine." Or you will just say "Eliza cup, Daddy cup." That works, too. You got the hang of "I," such as "I did it!" whenever you would successfully exit the swimming pool via steps. You were also quite emphatic if you thought Matteo took something that was yours, as in, "No Matteo. That's my..." We're working on that sharing concept.
You'll soon enough have a command of English and I recommend you don't stop there. I have never been able to pick up a second language despite taking a lot of classes in high school and college. When we were in Italy, someone told us, "the baby learns its mother's tongue." That's another way of saying that you're going to pick up what you most often hear: English. Your Mom and I will need to think about getting you in some second language environments quickly. I don't have a preference for what the language is, could be Mandarin, but I want to make sure you develop and exercise the cognitive muscle I don't have. Later in life, you'll have the chance to study abroad. Do it. My biggest regret in college was not studying abroad.
In the meantime, we'll keep dragging you kids to corners of the world for sprints at consuming foreign culture and language. And you'll watch a lot more movies on airplanes.
Love, Dad