"Waiting for you, yes."

It is done!

Drew watched the kids all Saturday so I could finish up, and it took all Saturday to finish up.  I think this was my first experience sanding anything.  It felt a lot like weaving in ends on a knitting project, which is almost as time consuming as the actual knitting and a lot less fun.

Speaking of knitting, here's a dress I made for my friend's baby shower.  Consequently, it sat in my project box for about a month, waiting for me to weave in the ends.  

But, I did enjoy using the random orbital sander; it is like a magic eraser for wood!  When you use it for hours on end though, your hands feel kind of like this afterwards:

Also, you get covered in a fine dust, which, when combined with copious sweat, turns into a nice wood paste.  It's very attractive.

I used 2 tubes of blue gel food coloring and 2 bottles of rubbing alcohol to stain the bed.  The base runs out of rubbing alcohol all the time, so I used the bottle we already had and was able to bum one off a friend, praying it would be enough to give everything one coat.  It would have been plenty, but what did I do when I had half the stairs, the bottom support rail, and the sides of the platform left to stain?  Set the jar down and promptly kicked it over as I was trying to heave myself back up to a standing position!  I let out a couple strangled "No!"s like Dad when his computer crashes and he hasn't saved his work, then did some frantic painting from the puddle before my drip cloth soaked all of it up.  It's not perfect, but I like how it turned out.  Drew said it makes him think of the beach, so when Vivi's older she can have an awesome beach themed room!  

Here are my woodshop guys: Naoki-san and JJ.  They were so very helpful.  Naoki-san was indispensable in surmounting the language barrier at the hardware store in town, sending me with his personal phone number when I was looking for a suitable varnish so he could explain to the workers there what I needed, then interpreting directions when I'd bring stuff back and not know what to do with it.  JJ answered many woodworking questions (he's very experienced), and made sure I took it easy (well, easier than I would have taken it anyway), helping me with lifting and remembering to take breaks.  When I accidentally glued the stairs on to the frame (I wasn't supposed to if I wanted to be able to fit it into the car) he spent a very sweaty half hour sawing them off for me.  And one day I came in and he was standing by the desk with a big smile on his face.  "Wait till you see it!"  He'd set up a huge fan right next to my work station with a mister attachment so I wouldn't die of heat exhaustion.  They are nice guys.  

All in all, the bed cost $305 to make ($165 for wood, about $65 for wood hobby shop fees, then the rest was screws, sandpaper for the belt sander I didn't really use, varnish, and brushes).  My Italian friend who used to work at Home Depot came to see it and told me I could totally sell it for $500-800.  I think we will keep it for awhile though--Vivi is quite happy with it!

When I set up the bed in the house, Vivien observed me moving some of the boards and said, "Can you hold it?  Are you strong?  Do you have your bones?"

I am both a little sad and relieved that it's done.  I fear I made a bit of a spectacle of myself.  It's a very big project, so anyone who went in to the wood hobby shop couldn't help but see it, and JJ and Naoki-san kept talking me up to anyone who stopped to look at it.  One of the corpsman I used to work with at the clinic asked Drew how I was doing, and he said "She's 8 months pregnant and building a loft bed."  They were laughing about that, then one of the other corpsman said, "That's your wife?!"  One of the nights I was there working on it, the wife of the man who's in charge of the Marine Corps Community Services for the base came up and told me I was "the talk of the town," and every time she came in, there were people taking pictures of the bed.  She said I was an inspiration to them all!  I tried to thank her graciously, but then I got sweat in my eye so it got awkward.  Anyway, hurray for Dads who build their young daughter's confidence by letting them help them with their projects!  Hurray for supportive husbands!  And hurray for the internet!

This seems as good a place as any to put my friend's solution to summer boredom at her house

On Saturday in between varnish coats, we went and saw Inside Out.  We all really liked it, but my favorite part was during the short at the beginning when the girl volcano bursts out of the ocean.  Vivien was holding an overflowing popcorn bucket and jumped so badly when the volcano came exploding out of the water that popcorn went flying EVERYWHERE.  I was laughing so hard . . . She ate popcorn off herself the rest of the movie.

We have been trying to help Vivi learn to write her name.  The first day we tried connecting dots to make V's.  She did a bunch of them really well, then one of them went kind of wonky.  I told her it was ok, and made her mistake into a running girl, then we tried again.  But she was still very frustrated about her mistake, and when one of the V's turned out with a really long side, she completely lost it, throwing markers and papers and herself with frightening zeal.  We quickly ended the lesson for the day.

Then the next day she was just drawing by herself and she wrote her name all on her own!  2 V's and 2 i's.  She was very pleased with herself.  I decided we could definitely afford to celebrate the right letters in the right quantities and worry about order later.  It was an eye-opening experience for me--my daughter has a very different learning style than I do, and I will need to be patient and give her the time and space she needs to figure things out!

This picture is of Rafe (orange), Vivien (blue), and Tarzan (black).  I am loving the addition of lots of fingers and toes to her drawings.  Also eyebrows.  And, "I draw chins now, Mom."  

We've been having lots of fun waiting for the baby to come.  We take glowstick baths.

We get haircuts.

We try very hard to keep our flowers alive in the heat.  Every day by about 10am they all look pretty sad, but it's kind of amazing how fast they perk up after a good drink.

Vivien is proud of her strawflowers.

 We've been swimming at the outdoor pool a lot too.  Rafe is slowly, very slowly, getting more comfortable in the water.  Vivien is improving leaps and bounds.  We are not allowed to suggest skills for her to work on.  All of her swimming progress comes when she watches the other kids in their swim lessons, then decides for herself that she can also do the same things.  She is now leaving the Tot Dock on her own sans flotation devices, swimming out a few feet, coming up and taking a breath, then swimming back.  She floats on her back, jumps off the side into the "deep end" and swims to her Daddy, and spins around and around in the deeper water like a mermaid.  It's amazing to watch her figure it out.  And her tan is something to behold!  This is her without her swimsuit:

After we go swimming, their most oft requested activity is to get "tacos and burritos" at Taco Bell at the Crossroads next door to the pool.  I made them branch out the other day and have Subway.  They got put into a trance by the TV screen mounted on the wall and it hypnotized them into eating all their food.

 I've been killing time this week trying to make some freezer meals for when my hands will be full.  I've been craving lasagna/baked ziti sorts of things, but all the recipes I have call for cottage cheese and they never have any at the commissary.  So, I totally found a recipe for cottage cheese on the internet, and it turned out pretty good.  Heat milk to 120 degrees, stir in some vinegar, let it sit for 30 minutes, then drain the whey off the curds and stir in a little half and half or cream and voila!  Now we can have cottage cheese and potato chips whenever we please!

While I am cooking, the kids are working on learning to play with each other nicely.  They've grown unaccustomed to unstructured play with only each other after being at youchien all day, and it is bringing up all kinds of opportunities to practice being kind, patient, and selfless.  Some days Vivien decides these are qualities she doesn't care to work on, so she takes a break.

I think she looks like a puppy.

I am also having ample opportunities to practice being kind, patient, and selfless with the kids home all day.  I think I am struggling with it about as much as they are.  Last week at church I was trying to help Vivi focus during the sacrament and I had her look around at all the people who were thinking.  I told her they were thinking about the things they had done that week that they needed Jesus' help to do better on.  I told her I was thinking about all the times I had lost my temper and had made her sad.  This week during sacrament she looked at me and asked, "Are you thinking about all the tempers you lost?"

When we do manage to all get along though, wonderfully funny things happen!

Playing dress-up the other day, Rafe had on goggles and was waving around a pair of pom-poms yelling, "I'm a prophet!  I'm a prophet!"

I also overheard Vivien say to Rafe "Do you want chocolate cookie dessert? Then you need to hold my hand and marry me!"

Hopefully the baby will come sometime . . . Last week I woke up one morning and thought my water had broken (Nope, Chuck Testa.) and had to endure a full work-up at Dr. Shoji's before they let me go home in incontinent shame.  Then the next day I had 26 hours of contractions every 10-15 minutes, but they went away.  Now it sort of feels like it will never happen!  Luckily I have good friends who are doing their very best to keep us entertained and busy so I don't have time to go crazy.  Here's hoping my next post will be a baby announcement!  And if it's not . . . at least Mom will be here!

P.S. Funny story from this week I forgot to work in.  One of our friends' kids had a birthday party in the community room downstairs.  I wasn't feeling super well that day, so I sent Drew down with our kids while I took a nap.  While he was there, he got a message from the new industrial hygienist, Jewel, saying she was in Tokyo and on her way to Hiroshima.  This was a surprise because the flight itinerary we had for her didn't have her coming in till the next day!  So, Drew told everyone he was leaving to go pick her up, and when someone expressed concern about me going into labor while he was gone, he said something like, "It'll be fine.  If worse comes to worst, she can just take a cab."  This statement was greeted with shock and outrage, and it took Drew a minute to realize that everyone thought he was talking about sending me to the hospital in a cab, instead of Jewel taking a cab from the airport.