Day 777. Last night I headed to bed at 12:30 am, and thankfully it was a quieter night than usual. However, both Tammy and Emmy joined us in bed early in the morning and were up and about around 6:30 am, and so we got up earlier today, just before 7 am. After breakfast I took them downstairs, where we were worshipping God and reading the Bible until Randy arrived with his breakfast. I went upstairs to finish cleaning up, but I was so extremely tired that I could not sit down to work. I lay back down in bed and fell asleep. It had been a long time since I chose to sleep instead of pushing myself to work, and it being Sunday, I guess it was okay to give in to this physical need for once. I have to say that I was still as tired as usual the rest of the day, the only difference being that my eyes are not falling shut while I'm writing my report tonight.
It was my alarm that woke me at 10:45 am, so I could go cook. It was hard getting up. At 11:30 I called everyone up to eat. Tammy and Emmy ate their vegetables and fries, not eating much chicken, and then Emmy was already up and off to play with water in the bathtub. Tammy was still eating, but once Emmy had left, she got up too to follow him. And so I did what I do at night and took the food to them. I was surprised at how much chicken they ate in the bathtub, while playing with water. I also gave them their puddings. And Sammy usually stops eating once his siblings are gone. I then put him into the bathtub with them and fed him chicken and his high-calorie pudding. In the end they all got to eat a good bit, which is good. Then I put the boys to bed, while Randy went downstairs with Tammy. I was surprised how fast they fell asleep today. Yesterday I had to fight a whole hour to get Emmy to sleep. Today he was gone quickly, at 12:15. At 1 pm Randy came upstairs with Tammy, which was too early. I put her to bed at 1:30 so she falls asleep right away, and it being half an hour early meant that it was a disaster again. She woke up Sammy and then started playing with him, which threatened to weak up Emmy and kept Tammy from sleeping. Sammy himself had only slept 45 minutes. I finally got Sammy out of bed and handed him to Randy. Randy made the mistake of sitting down with Sammy by their beds, and by then Emmy had woken up and wanted Mommy. Randy left with Sammy to go downstairs, while I lay down in bed with Emmy, and Tammy fell asleep. Emmy didn't want to sleep any more, and so I soon took him downstairs as well. He'd had an hour of sleep.
While the boys were downstairs, I was working, and Tammy was sleeping. At 2:30 I took some food downstairs to the boys and went to the kitchen to get their dinner-to-go ready. Around 3 pm Tammy woke up as well, after 1.5 hours of sleep. I took her downstairs as well and continued getting everything ready for our departure. At 3:30 they all came back upstairs, and we started putting their clothes on. All long sleeves, and today they wore their winter jackets for the first time.
Just after 4 pm we left the house to catch the train that only runs every half hour. Then we took a train and got to church just before the service started. They immediately went to the front, where flags and stuff to dance with were already lying out. Tammy and Emmy each grabbed a stick with fabric, and after a few minutes I got Sammy and took him to the front as well and he also enjoyed the fabric.
At 5:30 we went upstairs to the toddler room. Randy also came with Sammy who was cranky. We were the first ones in the room, but soon more people arrived. And today I talked to (grand)parents more than ever before, which was really nice. One already knew me from another church, and the other was new to the church. Our kids were hardly eating, as they were too busy playing and watching the other kids. At 6 pm Randy returned to the sanctuary, as that is when the program starts. However, the teacher wasn't there, and so the kids just continued playing, and the adults talking. It was 6:30, when the teacher finally showed up and started their program. That's also when Randy comes to pick Sammy up again, and so I had to send him back to the sanctuary.
Tammy really participated in the songs with actions, trying to do the movements. Emmy was just standing there watching. After the songs and the short teaching, the teacher took the kids to the tables, where she cut out the words "God loves me", and each kid could glue that on the cut-out hearts they had received. The teacher helped all three to glue the paper on the heart. Then the program was over, and as it was nearly 7 pm, I put their shoes on and we left to return to the sanctuary.
It was challenging to have all three plus the bag with their food all by myself. Thankfully Randy saw me coming and came up the stairs to help. Anna was also there and received them on the bottom of the stairs. She stayed with us a few minutes as we walked into the foyer, and then returned to the sanctuary. Given that it was getting late, we decided to leave before the service was even over. Randy went to get the strollers, we put their coats on and left after 7 pm.
We were walking to the tram stop, and it became obvious that it was impossible to make the 7:30 train home. And so we went another route, leaving in the opposite direction. After two stops on the tram, we took two subways and actually arrived back home by 8 pm, which was nice. Had we waited for the 8 pm train, we would have arrived home a few minutes after 8.
Just before we had left home, our friends had dropped off a few bags of stuff for Mali. Those bags were sitting in our entry, and so Emmy and Tammy immediately started going through them, as there were lots of interesting toys and dolls. We started undressing them, washing them and putting their pj's on, but then they wanted some of those new dolls, and both Emmy and Tammy ended up with two new dolls each in bed with them. It kept them awake longer than usual. It was nearly 9 pm before Tammy had finally fallen asleep, and I could leave.
Our food had been delivered at 8:30, and Randy had prepared everything downstairs for us to eat and watch a movie. We always watch half a movie, but we simply could not remember what we had watched last week, plus I could not find it, and so we started a new movie. By 10 pm we had finished eating and had watched the first half of the movie, so we stopped. I went to work on the computer. while Randy started organizing the content of the bags for Mali we had received. I was going a little slow tonight, and so it's 1 am now, as I finish writing. I just have to finish the dishes, and then I'll be heading to bed too.
