26 months 22 days

Day 814. Last night I went to bed at 11 pm. Randy was already in bed, and I was pretty tired. I also didn't feel too great. The girl crawled into bed with me rather early. I went to the bathroom and started throwing up. After that I felt so much better. I lay back down, and soon Emmy also came to sleep with us, so he was on my left and Tammy on my right. I was forced to sleep on my back again, with my arms going numb, and I was hurting a little not being able to move. And the girl was having a restless night for some reason. She kept waking up and wanting cookies. I resisted at first, but she was throwing such a fit that I finally gave in. She took a few cookies but did not eat them. She was holding them, and eventually throwing them. Most of the cookies that were taken by her, and then also Emmy, were not eaten but ended up in bed and on the floor. The interesting thing to me was that she was saying "andere cookie", mixing German with English. She was saying "another cookie". Right now "andere" is their favorite word. They say it all the time, wanting a different baby, or different food, "andere Essen", and the like.

I got up to get Sammy and put him in bed with us for a few minutes, having fun with him, before getting up just after 7 am. They are not eating the cereal I make hardly ever any more, but I still have a good number of boxes to use up. Instead they want squeezy drinks, or sometimes salami. Today I put cheese and salami on bread, and Emmy ate it, while Tammy only ate the salami off. After cleaning them up and dressing them, we went downstairs, where I got their new Bible down and we read a few more stories. Once Randy came with his breakfast, I went upstairs, finished cleaning up and then sat down to do office work.

Just after 11 I went to the kitchen, then returned to the computer. I only had to put some food into the oven today, and later into the microwave, so it was not time-intensive. At noon I called them all upstairs to eat. Once again they were hardly eating anything. Even though they like pork so much. In the evening they ate all the pork, but not for lunch. They only had a few fries. Emmy then ate a little more, and in the end I gave them both puddings in the bathtub, while feeding Sammy his high-calorie pudding. After a while of having fun, they all came out. The boys went to bed, and Randy sat down with them, while I went downstairs with Tammy.

She wanted once again to do some drawing, and so I set the table up and got the paper and crayons out, and we enjoyed doing some drawing together. After a while she'd had enough and wanted to watch Barbapapa, and so we put everything away and sat down to watch together. A few minutes after 1 pm we went upstairs. Randy then sat down with her, and she was soon asleep. As for me, I was able to get back to work.

The Christmas cards arrived today, and so I spent the rest of the day cutting and putting the address lables on the US and European cards. Sammy was the first one to wake up, and Randy went downstairs with him. He's had a runny nose and bad cough the past few days - only him. Before they had even gone downstairs, the girl was up, and so I took her downstairs as well, together with their afternoon snacks. It was only about 2:30 pm. As she had just woken up, she was not ready to let me leave right away. I had to sit down with her and just hold her for a while. Then I was able to go back upstairs. After another 15 minutes or so Emmy also woke up, and he immediately said he wanted to go downstairs, and so I took him there. Again, they had me stay for a little bit, before I was able to sneak away.

I went back to work. At 4:40 pm I stopped and went to the kitchen to make their dinner. I was already done just after 5 pm, and I could hear them crying, so it was high time for me to go downstairs and relieve Randy. He went upstairs, and I started having fun with my little once. At first it was all very physical, how we were having fun. I was chasing and catching them, and then I made them "fly", which is why Tammy is standing on top of the slide in the picture. We did all that until I could not go any more. Then they wanted to watch Barbapapa, and so they sat down on the couch to watch. Finally it was time to tidy up. I went on You Tube to try to find a specific tidying up song, but I could not find it. So I played the other tidying up songs, but they were more interested in watching than helping me. And so I had to tidy everything up all by myself. It was close to 6 pm, when I was done, and we were ready to go upstairs to eat.

The plates were already sitting on the table. All I had to do was add the soup. For some reason Tammy didn't even want her soup tonight, but Emmy ate both hers and his. Tammy was only interested in the prok, while Emmy had some salami he took off the bread. When it was clear that they were done, I combined their food on a plate that I took to the bathroom. Then they went into the water and started playing, while eating some more food, even though not much. Even Sammy ate little tonight. After they'd had fun for a while and were done eating, they came out, and we got them ready to bed. By 7 pm they were in bed.

Randy sat down with them, while I continued doing the Christmas cards until I got too hungry. I got myself something to eat and then continued working. Now I still have to do all the cleanup.

Maybe you noticed that it was Tuesday and we didn't go to dance class. Austria has imposed a lockdown on the unvaccinated, and so we were not allowed to go to dance class. But then the dance teacher quit because she's pregnant and afraid of Corona. So no more dance class before Mali.