"Madam, I have not disappeared. I'm very tiny. I am a germ. A rare disease . . . and you caught me!"

A winter may come that we won't get sick, when everyone will wash their hands and get enough rest and not travel, and no one will catch or bring home any bugs.  But it is not this winter.  

 It's been a rough 3 weeks since I got home.  We've passed around fevers, congestion, coughs, sore throats, ear aches, headaches, and fatigue.  We leave snot trails everywhere we go, like snails.

There were a few days in there that I was not sure if I was going to make it.  I felt so poorly, and if I had been by myself I know I would not have gotten out of bed at all (because Rafe caught what I had a few days later and left his bed only to pick at his food and pee).  Drew had a really busy week with a two-day training in Yokosuka, a duty day, and a bunch of branch president stuff to get ready for Branch Conference, so it was just me and the three.  I have never been around so many people who didn't care at all how I felt--my condition had absolutely no effect on the quantity or quality of their demands of me.  Here I am lying miserably on the ground in a feverish haze, my voice completely gone, and Vivien is scolding, "I think it's really rude that you won't read me a story!"  I struggled through this library book so many times that week . . . just looking at the cover makes me want to weep bitterly at the injustice of it! 

I spent a lot of hours lying on the ground meeting as many needs as possible while moving as little as possible.  Oh motherhood!  Even when you are so hard, you are so fun, in a madhouse kind of way . . .

All of it would have been much easier to handle if we weren't dealing with jet lag at the same time.  Andelynn was getting up every 1-2 hours at night and spending her nap times rolling back and forth from one side of her crib to the other, protest-yelling and getting her legs wedged in the gaps.  Little stinker.

But now that I am feeling better, it is infinitely easier to take care of (and enjoy) everyone.  Annie is getting more and more mobile by the day and loves to explore new places and things she couldn't get to before.

 And it's been fun to listen to and watch the kids play while they've taken days off school to recuperate.  It is making me excited for the school year to end this month so we can do it all the time.  We've started to establish a routine, the most important scheduled event being an episode of Dinosaur Train at 2:00.  They look forward to it all day, and it has been good motivation for them to learn to tell time.  The other day Vivi checked the clock and yelled triumphantly that it was two o'clock and time for Dinosaur Train.  I whooped with her and ran to set it up, then stood next to the TV during the opening song and sang along, slapping my thigh to the beat (I'm really trying hard to perfect this embarrassing parent thing).  She gave me a stern look and said, "Ew. When you spank your bum on your own, it's yucky."  I was properly chastened and banished myself to dish-doing.

Vivi and Rafe are good playmates.  They like to pretend.  Among the favorite imaginary characters are "Skung-fu panda" and "the Incrediboys."  

Vivi: Let's play Incrediboys!  I'll be Violet.

Rafe: Who can I be?

Vivi: You can be Dash.

Rafe: Is Dash a boy?

Vivi: Yes.

Rafe: Ok.  I'll be Dash.  

If we are reading books, they have to decide who on the page they're going to "be."  Vivi usually chooses someone right away, then Rafe asks "Who can I be?"  He won't choose on his own unless he's prompted to, and then he takes his sweet time.  You cannot turn the page until they have both decided and announced who they are, or you have to go back.  It makes our story times excruciatingly long sometimes.  

 Rafe has gotten a lot more coordinated in the last little while.  He likes to take scissors and a piece of paper and cut it into little tiny shreds and leave them in piles on the floor.  I'm not a huge fan of this game, but I think it's cool he can cut stuff.  His drawing as become more purposeful as well:

He has two favorite phrases right now.  If Drew walks in the front door, instead of "Welcome Home!" or some variation thereof, he always says, "Daddy! Are you gonna change your clothes?!"  If he changes out of his uniform, that means he's staying, so it's an important question.  The other favorite phrase is "YOU ARE MAKING ME MEAN!" which he yells at anyone who does something he doesn't like.  Feelings!

Self portrait

 Vivi painted a picture for her friend's birthday.  I liked the name she chose for it, so we framed it and made it all official.

She has also started writing strings of letters and then having me read them aloud.  I ordered Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I think it's time!

 Girls in the tub!

Vivi gave me a sword fighting lesson the other day while I was feeding Annie.  Except Annie gets distracted by everything when she's eating now, and there was a lot going on in this room, so I'm afraid it wasn't a very solid meal.

 Luckily she can "fill up the corners" at the table with the rest of us!  Before her new clip-on seat arrived, she reigned over mealtimes, exalted on her high chair throne at the head of the table.  I think she is happier sitting level with the rest of us though, where she can practice picking her food up by herself.  And also knocking it off onto the ground.  Today while I was cleaning up her breakfast I was reminded of that scene in Casper the Friendly Ghost where he gives his uncles their food, they whirl it around inside them for a little bit, then it all falls onto the floor in a crumbly, nasty mess.

 I checked a few projects off my list once I started feeling better.  I folded some rainbow fish for the kids' bathroom wall out of this plastic origami paper.  They swim all around the bathroom.  I love them :)

 I also broke in the Christmas Bosch and made Italian bread.  It's definitely the best bread I've ever made.  Baby Drew agrees.

Vivi and I made dolls the other day out of stuff we found at the Daiso.  She calls them her "spoon girls."

I also got my hair trimmed, cause it was starting to get a little mullet-y.  The stylist that cut it originally posted my "transformation pictures" on Instagram, and they're much nicer than my selfies, so here is what it looked like at first!

And another view.  It is fun to have short hair.  There are so many different ways to do it!  Those days that I manage to get in the shower and have a few minutes after my shower before someone starts crying . . .

 I finally made my fail proof fire starters.  They are made of dryer lint stuffed into egg cartons, wrapped in dental floss, then dipped in paraffin.  I was so excited to test them that I lit one in the house.  When the flame was instantly 6 inches tall I started to get a little worried about setting off the fire alarm in the building (and the sprinklers in my apartment . . .), so I tried to relocate to the balcony.  Unfortunately our old dining table and chairs are waiting out there until we can figure out what to do with them, so I had to do some quick furniture rearranging around an open flame with a baby in one arm.  Just when I thought we were good, the plate cracked and then I had a ball of flames sitting on a wooden table on my balcony.  I ran for water.  Seriously didn't think that situation through very well.  I'm very glad I didn't burn down my tower.  

 Drew and Vivien got to go skiing together last weekend.  Vivi said she had a good time.

 They have a play room for the little kids when they need a break from being in the snow.

And here she goes skiing.

It's a good thing she's got Drew to teach her, because it doesn't look very fun to me.

 On Saturday we went to the Japanese American Society's annual social.  Drew took the kids down while Annie took a nap to do some flower arranging.

 Then we met them later for the dragon dance.  This was the best one I have seen.  The dragon choreography was excellent!  They would get all tangled up together and make these intricate patterns.  And the dancers did a great job giving the dragon heads realistic movements.  Am I allowed to say "realistic" when I'm talking about dragons?  "Believable" movements is probably more appropriate.

The boy next to Vivi is Zach, one of our young men who is really sweet with my kids and holds Annie for me at church whenever I let him.  He doesn't usually look like that.  He is usually smiling.

 The dragons were also very interactive with the audience.  I could see Vivien watching them shrewdly, and she turned to me a few minutes into the dance and informed me that the dragons had people inside, so she was ok with the close proximity.  But poor Rafe was out of his mind with terror.  I hope his time in Japan will not be the source of nightmares for years to come . . .

 Luckily our samurai friend was able to drive them back.

 Things looked bad for him for a little while, but fear not.  All five dragons were beheaded by the end of the day, and he got to marry the princess.  Hurray for Sir Giles!