Day 746. Last night I went to bed just after 11:30. The kids and Randy had already been asleep since 8 pm. Emmy crawled into bed with me pretty early in the night, while Tammy stayed in her bed until morning. Thankfully this bed is big enough that it did not affect my sleep. Emmy tends to come to me, while Tammy goes to Randy. This morning it was Sammy woke up first at 6 am, and the noise woke up Emmy, and then Tammy joined us in bed. I have cookies and water by my bed to give to them to keep them lying down longer and postpone the call for food until later.
At around 7:45 we left the room to go downstairs for breakfast. We found a corner table with benches on two sides, and ended up having two high chairs, as Tammy wanted to sit in one. I went to the small buffet to quickly get some food for some hungry kids. It wasn't long before restless Tammy wanted out of her chair, but we did not let them run around in the room. They did pretty well in terms of eating. Of course they kept us on our toes the whole time, keeping them from pulling stuff off or down, and not always succeeding.
After breakfast we returned to our room. It was raining outside, so going outside to play was not possible. I had to work in the same room as them, which was somewhat possible, because I did not need much concentration for what I was doing. At 10:30 we started getting ready to leave and drive to a restaurant, where we were meeting with our friends. It was only a 5-minute drive, but Sammy was already so tired that he fell asleep. He was awake once the car parked. Getting out of the car, I suddenly realized that we would need our Covid test result to go to the restaurant, but we had left it at the hotel. Our friends had not arrived yet, so we were waiting for them. There were shopping carts for the supermarket there, and the kids ended up sitting in them and having fun, while we pushed them around. When our friends arrived in their car, she got out and Randy got in, and the guys returned to our hotel so Randy could get the test results. That gave me a chance to talk a little with my friend, while moving the kids in their carts. Once they had returned, we kept them in the carts as we took the elevator to go downstairs and then walked to the restaurant. We got some people's attention.
As we sat down in the restaurant, especially Emmy was asking for food, but Tammy as well. I had to explain to them that we had to order and then wait for it. I picked a pizza and a pasta dish for all of us, and it did take quite a while before it came. Tammy had some of the Italian bread that was on the table, but Emmy didn't care for it.
Once the food came, it was Tammy who was in the high chair, not Sammy. I put some food on their individual plates so they could get started eating. We were busy with them, but were able to have some short conversations with our friends in between.
There was a crane outside the window, and they love cranes, so they just watched it for quite a while, until it moved on. Tammy, as always, could not sit still and ended up making a mirror fall off the wall, but thankfully it didn't break. And of course there were glasses and bowls being turned over.
Sammy was getting extremely tired and was just about falling asleep on Randy. It was time to leave and put them to bed. We said our goodbyes, and still went into the supermarket, where we had parked, to buy a few groceries. It was the very first time that the five of us went to a grocery store together. Tammy and Emmy sat in a cart, while Randy was carrying Sammy. They were looking around at all the stuff around them, and were checking out what I put into the cart. Once we reached the cashier, they put the food on the conveyor belt. We paid and returned to the car to drive the 5 minutes back to the hotel.
It was 1 pm, when we got back to our room, and high time to get Sammy to bed. He fell asleep fast, and then Randy lay down with Tammy, while I lay down with Emmy. But Emmy needed a long time, contrary to his sister, and only fell asleep just before 2 pm. Finally! And then they set a new record for how long they were sleeping, I think. We had planned to go to our friends' house after they woke up, but by then it was not worth going over there any more. It was Tammy who woke up first, after over 3 hours, at 4:30, and that woke Sammy up. Emmy continued sleeping for quite a while. I think they were still catching up on sleep from the travel day yesterday.
It had stopped raining, but everything was wet outside, so we all just stayed in our room. We tried to have Randy play with them, so that I could work, but that was not really working, as they kept coming to me. At 5:30 they were asking for food already, so we got started on dinner. I made them some bread with cream cheese, and we had some leftover meat and fries for them to eat. They ended up eating pretty well. And then there was a rainbow on the ceiling suddenly. A sign of God's faithfulness!
After they were done, I went into the shower with Sammy first, and then with the other two at the same time. It's a good thing they now enjoy the shower and are not afraid of it any more. We put their pj's on and put them to bed. Again Randy stayed with Tammy, while I sat by the boys. Emmy took the longest to fall asleep. It was already 8:15 by then. Randy was asleep with Tammy, but woke up after a while. I went to work, as I have to prepare my message for Saturday, but did not get far. I hope to get more done tomorrow. Once again my eyes are falling shut, while I'm writing, and I simply need to go to bed.
