A Fish Out of Water: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Explore, Learn, Imagine

Keoni woke up one morning to find that the first thing he needed to do was answer the call of the potty. Then Leimomi entered the bathroom, picked Keoni up, carried him out to the high chair and placed him in the seat so that he could eat his cereal.

After Keoni finished breakfast, Malie let him out of the high chair, and Hokulani took the empty bowl from the tray in order to wash it in the kitchen sink. Keoni toddled back into the bedroom and gave Beach Bear a big hug. Then Keoni decided that the beach needed some decorating, so he changed out of his pajamas and into his everyday clothes, and he headed outside. He went around to the side of the house, but just as he had his paint bottles in hand and was preparing to get creative, Leimomi caught him. "Keoni, remember what I told you? No paint on the beach. It won't be good for the fish, which in turn won't be good for our family." She tried to hug it out with Keoni, but he pushed her away again.

Leimomi went to say hello to someone who'd just passed by along the road, and Kapena came along to chat with Keoni. The little boy told his father all about his favorite superheroes, trucks, and animals, and then he decided to try a joke. "Knock knock!"

"Who's there?" Kapena asked.

"Banana!"

"Banana who?"

"Banana banana banana!" Keoni started giggling uproariously at the sound of his own voice repeating the word 'banana' a few times. Apparently he still needed a little bit more practice before he could fully comprehend how a knock knock joke works.

Kapena headed off down the beach, and Keoni decided to check on Malie and see what she was up to. He went around to the other side of the house and found his mother with her hands and forearms in a tub full of sudsy water. Keoni figured she must have been having a lot of fun splashing and playing with the water and the bubbles!

However, Keoni couldn't stick around and watch his mother splash in the water for too long; Beach Bear needed another hug. Keoni went back inside, headed into the bedroom, toddled over to Beach Bear, and gave the teddy a big hug. Then Keoni started bopping to a tune he was making up in his head. When he finished dancing, he headed back outside for another attempt to make the sand colorful. This time, he was able to splash quite a bit of paint around without getting caught. However, as he was on his way back into the house, he ran into Kapena. "Son," Kapena said, kneeling down in front of the toddler. "It's time you learned the importance of good manners. Saying 'please' and 'thank you' will get you far in life. A skilled fisherman needs to know how to land many different kinds of fish, and having good manners is a way to fish for friends, so to speak."

After Kapena finished instructing Keoni on good manners, he waded into the ocean and started to swim out into the lagoon. Keoni watched his father go, feeling a bit miffed because sometimes he didn't want to say please and thank you, but also marveling at how grown-ups were big enough to swim in such deep water. Keoni would need an awful lot of practice splashing if he was ever going to be that good at swimming... but Keoni figured knew exactly where he could get plenty of practice with that.

Keoni toddled around to the other side of the house, found the tub that Malie had been splashing in earlier that morning, slid his little hands into the water, and started splashing away!

Of course, Keoni's fun only lasted until Kapena came back up onto the beach and located his son. "Keoni, don't splash in the wash tub," Kapena told the toddler firmly.

Keoni grudgingly stopped splashing. Then he hurried back into the house as quickly as his little legs could carry him -- when he had to go potty, he had to go potty.

When Keoni had finished doing his business, he left the bathroom to find that his parents and aunt were nowhere to be seen. Leimomi strolled up to him. "It's just you and me tonight; some of our local businesses are thanking their patrons by offering free food and drinks for one day, so Daddy, Mommy and Aunt Hokulani went out to a restaurant. Now, what shall we have for dinner?"

Keoni wasn't quite sure how to answer that question -- usually his dinner was peas. But Leimomi seemed to be able to tell that Keoni was concerned that the rest of the family wasn't home, so tonight, she went over to the fridge and got out a heaping bowl of leftover fruit salad for Keoni as a special treat. Then she got another bowl of fruit salad for herself.

After dinner, Leimomi gave Keoni a bubble bath. When, alas, the time finally came for Keoni to leave the water and bubbles behind, Leimomi brought her grandson out to the living room, sat him down in a chair, and sat down on a loveseat next to him. "Let me tell you more about the merfolk -- or the people of the sea, as our ancestors used to call them. Legends say they lived almost the same way as our ancestors did. They had a king who ruled over them, and the warriors who served the king were fierce fighters, as our people discovered the hard way when the merfolk first went to battle against them..."

Keoni listened closely to the rest of the story, imagining an underwater world where people with fish tails instead of legs lived in undersea houses with their families, much like his own family. When Leimomi had finished telling the story, she got out a set of flash cards. Keoni sat down on the floor, Leimomi knelt across from him, and they spent the rest of the evening with a lesson on numbers.

It was getting late, so Leimomi helped Keoni change into his jammies and brought Keoni to his bed, and Keoni crawled under the covers and fell asleep.