Day 678. Last night I was so tired I could not keep my eyes open (kind of like tonight) and so I had no choice but to go to bed at 11:45 pm. This morning it was Sammy who'd been crying for a while, and I finally got up at 7:20, so a lot earlier than usual. The girl was still sleeping.
After breakfast I took them downstairs, where we were worshipping God and reading the Bible together. Then I went upstairs to clean up and then do office work. At 11:15 I stopped to put some meat into a pan and warm up some jars, and at 11:30 they came upstairs to eat. As dessert they had vanilla icecream again that Randy had bought just for them which they greatly enjoyed. Then I cleaned them up and dressed them, and Randy took Emmy and Tammy downstairs, while I did the same with Sammy and then put him to bed. I started doing clean up, then put Emmy to bed. He was crying and standing up in bed, so I had to put him back down. He finally fell asleep, and so it was Tammy's turn. It always takes her a while to fall asleep, but nothing like today. It took her a WHOLE hour! At 1:50 she finally fell asleep. That was really late, especially as we had to leave at 3 pm. Emmy was already up and downstairs with Randy by the time she fell asleep. Thankfully Sammy slept longer today. When he woke up, Randy came upstairs with Emmy to feed them. He put them into the high chairs, while I continued my preparations for us to leave. He was feeding them for a while, but Emmy wanted to be with me. I finally got him out and dressed him for church, as did Randy with Sammy, and 20 minutes before leaving I got Tammy out of bed and started dressing her. Tammy always needs a while to wake up, and she'd only had 50 minutes of sleep instead of her typical 2 hours to 2.5 hours. She was frantic and gave me a very hard time. I was finally able to get her into the stroller for us to leave.
We had to leave an hour earlier than usual, at 3 pm, as the church has moved to a new location and now the service is at 4 pm. It was their first service there tonight. It was near the previous location, though, and we could even get off the subway a few stops earlier than before. We got to the train station early, and when our train arrived, we found ourselves sitting in it without it moving for 15 mintues, as someone was on the rails. They all want out of the stroller every time now, and Tammy and Emmy got to sit on the seats like big kids.
Even with the delay we made it to church on time. However, it was a long trek up to the top floor of that entertain building they are now in. We had to take an elevator to the third floor, and then there was another elevator operated with a key that took us to the top floor. Then we were there, in the new location. It was really nice. We went into the new sanctuary and sat down in the back. It wasn't long when the little girl arrived we used to see a lot but haven't in a while. She immediately came over to our kids and stayed with them for a while. She's a little older.
As worship ended, we decided it was time to go to the baby room. We waited in the coffee shop outside the sanctuary for the door to be unlocked for us. You could still smell the fresh paint. It was still a little scarce in there, and the TV wasn't set up yet for us to watch what was going on in the sanctuary. We were told we could go outside on the terrace, which was really nice, especially the fresh air after the paint smell. However, Daddy is usually overly fearful, and he would not let more than one kid at the time go outside with me because of a little slit on the bottom of the railing. And so I had Emmy with me, and then Tammy, and then Emmy one more time. We had a nice view up there, and there were even flowers planted that Tammy enjoyed.
We went back inside and then out of the baby room into the hallway. It was an escalator that was bringing people up to the church level, and Emmy and Tammy just loved it. They don't know escalators, as we always take elevators with the strollers. They loved touching the moving handrail especially. It would go off after a while of inactivity, and I had to step on it for it to come back on. They had so much fun, as you can see in the video for yourselves.
The other favorite thing of theirs were the helium balloon decorations. I had to hold Emmy in my arms, while he was playing with them. And later Sammy joined us and lay on the floor by them playing with the ballons who had already sunk all the way down, having a great time.
We all had fun, but had no clue what was going on in the sanctuary. We saw people coming out, and went over to the coffee shop where they had cake for everyone to celebrate. I got a few pieces of easy-to-eat cake, and they all enjoyed eating it. We had to eat it standing up, though, as you need a Covid test or vaccination to be allowed to sit down wherever food is served. We talked to a few people, and then decided it was time to make our way home. We had to find someone with a key so we could take the elevator back down. After a while we were back on the street and walked to the subway. When we got to the platform of our train, one had just left and we had to wait 25 minutes for the next one at 7 pm. That was a long wait. Tammy and Emmy came out of the strollers and sat down on the bench, and ate some more of their food. They don't think they've eaten any bread tonight though, just fruit.
We finally got on the train, and there was a little dog there. Emmy wanted to go see it, so I went over there. The lady was really nice and liked talking, and I was surprised when Emmy wasn't too scared to pet the dog. I then went to get Tammy to also pet him, and as the lady was talking about her autistic son and how her dog had served helping people, I went to get Sammy as well to pet him. And then we already had to get off the train.
We walked home, and immediately started getting them ready for bed. By 7:30 they were all in bed, so just half an hour later than usual. Emmy fell asleep quickly - after he made sure to let me know that he wanted me to stay by his bed. Sammy was having a really hard time for some reason. I came back for him twice, gave him some milk, and then he finally fell asleep.
Our food had already arrived, and we went downstairs to eat and finish last week's movie. Then I sat down at my desk to start working on the pictures. It was getting later, and once again I got so extremely tired that my eyes simply would not stay open. I started writing this update, but was unable to finish it because of it. I finally gave up, shut down the computer, and went to the kitchen to load the dishwasher as it needed to run over night. That's all I managed to do. At 12:30 am I fell into bed.
