25 months 19 days

Day 781. Last night I headed to bed at 12:15 am. Both Tammy and Emmy ended up in bed with us, as always, and we got up around 7:20. After breakfast I took them downstairs, where I turned worship music on and got their Bibles out. Once Randy came with his breakfast, I went upstairs to finish cleaning up and to work.

Because of the difficulties I've had to get them to sleep both at lunch time and at night, we decided to have lunch at noon instead of 11:30 again. And so I worked until 11:20 before I went to the kitchen to cook lunch. At noon I called them upstairs to eat.

I had already taken their clothes off, when the doorbell rang. A friend came to drop of stuff for Mali as well as our kids. Our kids immediately started going through the bags and pulling out stuff they were interested in, while I tried to get them to sit down and eat. Tammy ate pretty much nothing, while Emmy ate at least all his and Tammy's vegetables. For some reason they do not like potatoes, though they do eat fries. It wasn't long before they were heading to the bathtub. I turned the water on and gave Emmy his puddings, while Tammy was crying to get hers. I told her she wasnn't getting any as she had not eaten anything. I also fed Sammy his high-calorie pudding. After we got them out, I dressed the boys and put them to bed, while Randy went downstairs with Tammy. It was nearly 1 pm.

I thought it would be easy to get them to sleep, but Emmy was as awake as if it had been noon. Once again I was trying everything I knew to try to get him to sleep, but to no avail. By 1:15 Sammy had finally fallen asleep. As for Emmy, it took him until about 1:35. And so it was 1:40. before Tammy went to bed. It took her nearly until 2 pm to fall asleep. A few minutes later Sammy was already awake, which did not make Daddy happy who had only had a few minutes of a break. A few minutes later he went downstairs with Sammy. They returned just before 3 pm, and the noise was enough to wake first Emmy up, and then Tammy. I was feeding Tammy the jar Sammy had not wanted, while Randy was getting ready to leave with Sammy to take him to his physiotherapy session. They left at 3:15 pm, and I went downstairs with Tammy and Emmy to play.

We had nearly 2 hours of playtime together, which was great. We did all kinds of things. They were swinging and sliding, playing the guitar, playing balll, reading books with me, watched a few minutes of "Barbapapa", and I was swinging them around. We did not get bored. By 5 pm Randy and Sammy were back, and a few minutes later they came downstairs, while I went upstairs to work a few more minutes before it was 5:30.

At 5:30 I started making their dinner and I had planned to go downstairs at 6 pm to tidy up with them, before eating dinner. However, Randy already did it with them before, and so they came upstairs to eat, instead of me going downstairs. They didn't eat long before going to the bathtub. They continued eating there, though not all their food, and then we put long-sleeved pj's on them for the first time. By 7 pm they were in bed, so not that much earlier than usual. And it seemed as tough as ever to get them to sleep. The boys fell asleep first, and a little while later the girl. I got myself something to eat, ate, and then went back to work. Now I still have all the cleanup to do. As always, I kept falling asleep writing this, and always have to delete and correct myself, when I open my eyes again and look at what I've written.