23 months 30 days

Day 730. Last night I headed to bed just after midnight. Thankfully it was a rather quiet night. They came to us early, but not as early as they come most of the time. It was nearly 7 am, when I got up to make their breakfast, because Emmy was throwing a fit asking for food.

After breakfast we went downstairs, worshipping God with instruments, and then looking at Bibles. When Randy came with his breakfast, I went upstairs to finish clean-up and then work. I was tired but decided to do much-needed office work. By 10 am I could barely keep my eyes open and had to close them for a few minutes. At 10:30 I went to the kitchen to cook, and a few minutes later Sonja arrived. It was great timing as I had heard Emmy cry for a few minutes already.

Just after 11 am they all came upstairs to eat. All but Randy who wanted to hang two pictures up downstairs that I wanted up before their birthday celebration. And so I was the one feeding Sammy, while Sonja fed the other two, and that's how I was able to take the picture from Randy's perspective. It was their first lunch sitting on the "big kid" chairs, right at the table, instead of the high chairs. They really enjoyed the pork and needed seconds, and also liked the potatoes better as I had added butter to them today. And they all had icecream today.

After lunch I cleaned them up and dressed them and put the boys to bed. I stayed for a while, even holding Emmy for a few minutes. Randy left for the grocery store. At 12:30 I put Tammy to bed, and she fell asleep rather fast. A few minutes later the cleaning lady arrived, and she started working downstairs. At 1:30 Emmy woke up. I sat down in the chair with him to rock him a little, but immediately started shouting "Sonja!", so I took him downstairs to Sonja. Then Randy returned, Sammy woke up, and at 2 pm the two of them left to go to the university hospital for Sammy's weekly physiotherapy session. Randy told me later that the therapist was really proud of Sammy, of how he was moving on his own in the water.

I was working upstairs, when Sonja and Emmy suddenly walked in just before 2:30 pm. Sonja said that Emmy had been asking for his Mommy so much that she brought him upstairs. They sat down on the bed, where I was working, and Emmy grabbed a paper and enjoyed looking at the pictures. They stayed upstairs for a while, and so it wasn't long before Tammy was woken up. So I handed Sonja their food jar to feed them, and they went out on the balcony, together with the bubble machine. They were having fun. And they both kept wanting to be with me, so work was not possible.

After they were done, we went downstairs. Today they were extremely cranky and clingy and seemed tired. It's unusual that they constantly want me to be there and to hold them. I think it's the aftereffect of the intense last three days. In any case it meant that it was impossible for me to work, even though I had so much to get done. I stayed downstairs with them, and even when Randy and Sammy arrived, they still wouldn't let me go. I started rearranging some stuff for their birthday tomorrow, removing a mattress, putting down a little carpet and their table and chairs. And I left some space for where their birthday present goes.

When they wouldn't let me leave to make their dinner but were both frantically crying and clinging to me, I knew I had no choice but to let them come upstairs with me. I put two chairs in the kitchen right next to me and starting making their bread with cream cheese and putting it on their plates from where they picked it up to eat it. Sonja was feeding Sammy who actuall ate ALL his bread that way, before even sitting down at the table! And he ate the rest, when I fed him in the bathtub, and was done long before his siblings.

After I'm done with the bread, I go turn the water on to fill the bathtub, and they already know to put all the bath toys into the bathtub at that time. Then I return to the kitchen to continue with the fruit, and they followed me. Sammy loves mango. Tammy watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe. Right now Emmy really likes strawberries. Sammy also likes raspberries. We took all the food they had not eaten at the table to the bathroom. Before I even had Sammy in the water, Emmy was already at the faucet turning it on. And today Tammy joined them again, and so it was all three who were playing with the faucet the whole time, while I kept changing positions to not be so uncomfortable or even in pain while holding Sammy. He was screaming again, when I pulled him away from the faucet and got him out of the water. That's how much he enjoys playing with the faucet. His siblings followed suit, and a few minutes later they were in bed.

If only that was the end of the story. Tonight has already been a rough night, and I can only pray it will all be quiet once we go to bed. Tammy got so frantic, wanting her Daddy and nobody else, and Daddy is not used to helping them fall asleep. Emmy at the same time wanted Mommy. Randy ended up having the only chair by their beds, holding Tammy, while I stood by Emmy's bed, hoping for him to fall asleep quickly, but that was not the case. We tried to put Tammy to bed several times without any luck. I could not comfort here, and so she would run away looking for Daddy. The last time Randy put her to bed after holding her, he sat down by her bed, and that finally did it. He fell asleep and stayed there for a long time.

I had two cakes to bake for tomorrow, and was gonna do so in the afternoon. I had the first cake in the oven and leaned the handmixer against the bowl with the second batch to go check on the first cake, when I heard a noise, turned around, and found my bowl on the floor. Already Randy had had to go to the store twice as he had only bought one cake mix the first time. Now he needed to go a third time. I texted him and he brought home another one after Sammy's physiotherapy session. I was pretty annoyed though, as I could not finish the cakes, but had to make the second one tonight. The biggest job is going to be my artful decoration tomorrow morning.

I got something to eat and went back to work, and now I'm just so very tired and need to go to bed. It's going to be a long day tomorrow.