26 months 26 days

Day 818. Last night I went to bed just after 12:30 am. Tammy came at some point during the night, and then Emmy. By 6:15 Emmy was up for good, and soon he had his sister up as well, and they went off wreaking havoc. Today they made the stand-up fan fall and broke the legs. I got up before 7 am to put an end to all that and start making breakfast.

After breakfast I took them downstairs and got their Bibles out, and we read a few stories. Once Randy came, I went upstairs to clean up and then do office work. I was making good progress, but at some point I got so tired that I actually fell asleep. I woke up a few minutes later. I went to the kitchen after 11:30, as the kids and I had leftovers to warm up, but I still had to make some food for Randy. At noon I called them upstairs to eat.

Tammy once again refused to even take one bite of her food. All she wants is squeezy drinks (fruit & vegetables). I told her she was not getting any. Emmy ate most of his food, and he of course wanted the food on my plate, and I gave it to him. Then Tammy suddenly also wanted my food, and she had quite a lot from my plate. I was just glad she ate. She could also have eaten the same food from her own plate.

Since they had both eaten plenty, they both got puddings, but wanted to eat them in the bathtub. Emmy didn't eat a lot of pudding, but Tammy did. And I fed Sammy one of his high-calorie puddings. They were having fun in the water. Then we got them out and put the boys to bed. Randy sat down with them, and I took care of Tammy and went downstairs with her. She immediately asked to be drawing again, and so we did. It didn't take very long before she wanted to watch Barbapapa, which we did.

Just after 1 pm we went upstairs. When I say, let's go upstairs to go to bed, she simply gets up and goes, without any resistence. I put her to bed and sat down, while Randy got up to take our Corona tests to the drop-off and go to the grocery store. Normally she falls asleep fast and easily, but not today. I took me until after 1:30 before she fell asleep; I was just glad she didn't wake any of her brothers up.

After she had fallen asleep, I continued doing office work. They were sleeping longer than usual today. Randy returned around 2 pm, and when Emmy made some noise a little time later, Randy helped him fall back asleep and stayed in the chair there to take his own nap. Sammy woke up first, and I got him out. Randy went downstairs with him, together with their afternoon snacks. Emmy was next, and I took him downstairs to join the other boys. He was like Tammy today, clinging to me and not wanting me to leave, so I stayed a little bit, but then left against his will.

I was already making their food for tonight, when Emmy walked up to me in the kitchen. And so I continued cutting up their dinner after coming back upstairs. And then Tammy walked up to me, just after I had finished. I took her downstairs, and Emmy immediately came to me to also hop on m lap. Surprisingly Tammy was okay with me leaving today, and Emmy didn't cry for long this time around, when I did leave.

I continued getting everything ready for our 4:30 departure. At 4 pm they all came upstairs, and we started dressing them. We left on time to go to the train station and took the 4:50 train to church, where we arrived not long after 5 pm. The baby room was locked. We went into the sanctuary, where we put the strollers and asked someone to unlock the door of the baby room for us and turn the TV feed on. I got their lunch boxes out, and Sammy started eating, while Tammy and Emmy were not interested at firs.t They preferred playing. After a while Emmy wanted into the baby chair, and then Tammy as well, and that's where he started eating. Tammy still didn't care to eat and didn't stay long. Emmy stayed for a while to eat.

At 6 pm the preaching ended, and we left the room to return to the sanctuary. They did a worship song, and as much as Emmy likes guitars, I lifted him up so he could see the guitar player better. After one song, the service was over. People were giving us more stuff for the kids in Mali and were saying hello to the kids. I took Emmy to the front to look at the guitar from closer up, but for some reason he was scared. Tammy was not.

We were waiting for the pastor, who we had a meeting with, and once he came, we all followed him to a room. He and three other people from the church are coming to Mali for one week in January, and so we all (except one) sat down to talk about it. Two people had just decided to come as well. We had a great time talking. As we were speaking German, Randy took the time to pack all the stuff for Mali into the strollers in such a way that we could take it home. One of the pastor's daughters was in the room for much of the time and playing with our kids, and at times they also came to sit on my lap. We talked until 7 pm and then said our good-byes.

I was hoping we'd make the 7:30 train. We had to wait for the subway a few minutes, but we made it. I challenged Tammy whether she could take her jacket off by herself, and take her shoes off by herself, and she showed me that she could and was so very proud, with a big smile on her face. We got them all ready for bed, and then I sat down by their bed, hoping they'd fall asleep fast. I was pretty hungry. Our food arrived at 8:20, and Tammy was still the most awake and just said that a package was being delivered, which is what is the case most of the time, when the doorbell rings. Emmy didn't react; he was on his way to falling asleep. Sammy was still quite awake, having slept a long 2.5 hours in the afternoon.

At one point Randy came, and once Emmy had seen him, he wanted Daddy to sit down in the chair instead of me, and so he did. They were still awake for a while. I went downstairs, where the food was waiting for us, turned the computer on and started looking for a movie we could watch. Finally Randy also came downstairs, and we started watching and eating. Half-way through the movie we stopped. It was somewhere after 9:30 pm. I went upstairs and started working. Once Randy went to bed, I vacated my working spot in our bed and went to the dining room to keep writing. The cleanup is already done, so all I have left to do is to go to bed.