Day 727. Last night I headed to bed just before 1:30. Little did I know that one of the roughest nights in a while was ahead of us. Long before I went to bed Emmy was waking up crying, which is not so unusual. I still had work to do, so I asked Randy to sit by his bed. But he kept waking up crying. Finally he was crying so hard that he woke up his sister, which is rare. Tammy sleeps through the night pretty much every night. But her gotten woken up messed her up for the rest of the night. The first time she was crying for "Daddy", so Randy sat down with her, and Emmy wanted to be with him as well, so I put Emmy on his chest as well. I came back after a while to put them to bed. I was able to put Emmy to bed, but Tammy was immediately crying for "Papa" this time again (the first time she used English, the second time German), so I returned her to Randy's chest. When I went to bed, I recommended he'd put her to bed and then sit down right next to her bed, and that worked. But as soon as he left to go to bed, she was crying again. We could not keep her in bed, and so she ended up sleeping in our bed all night. Now our bed is rather narrow, so I was definitely missing the space to be able to sleep well. And then Emmy came around 5 am and joined us, and so there was even less space. Needless to say I didn't just sleep little but also not well. And thanks to Emmy being next to her, Tammy also got up earlier than usual today. Together they got up earlier than usual to play or tear stuff of shelves. And I got up a little earlier to make their breakfast, as they were asking for food.
After breakfast we went downstairs, where I turned worship music on and gave them the instruments. Then I got the Bibles out that we looked at together. When Randy came with his breakfast, I left to go upstairs, finish cleaning up, and pick their clothes for our outing today. It was 8:15, when I lay down in bed for two more hours of sleep. As always it was a rough awakening and hard to get up. Randy had put Sammy to bed at 9:30, as he's the only one who can sleep early. He tried to get the other two to sleep downstairs with him, but they didn't. We dressed them and left the house just before 11 am.
I had been weighing our options for quite a while, whether to leave at 11 or 1 pm and be late, and believe we made the right choice. It turned out much better than expected, and worlds better than the last restaurant family gathering in June. We had to go all the way to the other end of town, which took two subways and a bus and one hour. Emmy was riding on the board attached to the stroller at first, but then sat in the stroller, as he was getting tired. The boys are usually asleep by noon after all.
We arrived there exactly at noon and were the last ones to arrive. We had to show our Covid test result and joined the family table. This restaurant had three high chairs set up for us, which was great. I tried to hand Tammy to Grandma right away, but she needed a few minutes to take it all in, all the many unknown people. Grandma is the only one she sees once a month or even less, and the others only a handful of times a year. It wasn't long though before she wanted to go be with Grandma, and Emmy as well. Grandma had brought a book that they enjoyed looking at together with her for a while. Sammy also had his turn with Grandma and Grandpa.
The kids had only had very little of a snack, so they were getting hungry. I'm not sure what time the food arrived, but it was probably close to 1 pm. They went into the high chairs, and I cut up the different kinds of meat and put it on their plates, together with the fries. And I was amazed at how well they ate. I had made the right food choice. One adult plate is the perfect amount for the three.
After everyone had eaten, we gave our gifts to my Mom's husband. We had two gifts, the second one being a mug with pictures of him with the kids, and there are so few it wasn't easy to find them. But he liked the gift. The kids had also signed a birthday card for the very first time ever. I gave them each the pen this morning, and they scribbled something.
They had been up for a long time and at a time, when they're usually asleep, so it was time for us to say good-bye. At 2 pm we left to return home. We had just missed a bus, and so we had to wait 10 minutes for the next one. They were tired and cranky, but wanted out of the stroller at the bus stop. Once on the bus, they both came to sit with me on the bench. Emmy lay his head on my shoulder and was soon asleep. Before we got off the bus, I put him into the stroller and he continued sleeping. He only woke up just after we arrived home an hour later. We had two subways to take after the bus. Sammy was awake, since he'd had a nap in the morning. On the second subway, Tammy had a fit because of her extreme tiredness and wanted her Daddy. I was holding her and sitting on a seat with her, but that was not good enough. So Randy sat down with her, and she fell asleep right on him right away. She continued sleeping in the stroller, when Randy put her in there before getting off the subway. Sammy was the only one awake.
We arrived home just after 3 pm. We put Tammy to bed, and she continued sleeping, and I put Sammy to bed, who also fell asleep. Emmy was done sleeping and went downstairs with Randy. As for me, I turned my computer on to get some work done, but after a while I also had to close my eyes for a little bit because I was so tired.
At 4:30 pm I first got Sammy out of bed. I had to wake them up, so they would still fall asleep at night. I took him downstairs, where I found Randy fast asleep on the floor, and Emmy playing by himself nearby. As soon as Emmy saw me, he wanted me to hold him. I could tell he was tired. He hadn't slept that long after all, and not in his bed. Then I went back upstairs to get Tammy. She did not appreciate being woken up and lay down on her Daddy for a ltitle bit. When Emmy was still crying for me, I knew I could forget getting work down and had to stay with them. I got their shoes and opened the door to let them outside to play. Tammy enjoyed her little car, and Emmy was happy to get a hold of the broom and ran around sweeping everywhere. He fell and got both his knees bloody again - before they had even healed up from the last fall. He did not appreciate me cleaning the wounds and disinfecting them. I was also holding Sammy and keeping him happy. And I put Emmy on my shoulders and ran with him up and down for some time to cheer him up.
As they had not really had an afternoon snack today, I decided to start making their food 15 minutes early. But both Emmy and Tammy wanted me to hold them, so I knew it wasn't gonna work for me to leave, and so we all went upstairs. I put two chairs in the kitchen that they could stand on, and had their plates right there in front of them. I put the food I was cutting and getting ready on their plates, and they started eating right away. At 5:50 we sat down at the table, ten minutes earlier than usual. And my two ate nothing more at the table. And so it wasn't long before I took their plates to the bathtub, and put them into the water. They brought the swim ring along that I had used for Sammy yesterday, and all three wanted to sit in it and took turns doing so. They ate quite a bit more, but Tammy hardly ate any bread tonight. They were all crying by the time it was time to get out of the water. Just so tired. We got them ready for bed and put them to bed. Emmy was asleep pretty fast, and Tammy was clearly more tired than usual. It was Sammy who was wide awake, having had two naps. After Emmy was asleep, I stayed a little longer to help Tammy sleep and left before she was. I could still hear Sammy for quite a while before it got quiet.
I was able to get myself something to eat, ate, and then went back to work. Now it's nearly midnight and everything is done. I surely need to catch up on some sleep.
