26 months 28 days

Day 820.  Everything was later last night, and so I only made it to bed at 1:30 am; I hadn't gone to bed that late in a long time. Emmy came to me once, but Randy took him back to bed. Then Tammy came and crawled into bed with me. At some point she wanted milk, but it was in the fridge. I looked at the clock and it was nearly 7 am. Emmy and Sammy were still sleeping. The one day we could all have stayed in bed longer - because they had gone to bed just after 9 pm last night instead of 7 pm - we had to get up. At 7:15 we could not wait any longer.

I made breakfast and asked Tammy to wait her brothers up. They ate a litte - Tammy nothing - and we dressed them and got them ready to leave. We left home on time at 8:30 am. We had 3 subways to take to get to the big university hospital, where they were born. We got there early and went into the container, where they measured our body temperature and asked whether we were healthy. They gave us a paper proving that we had come through there. We went back outside and continued on to the building that is the children's hospital. We stood in line waiting our turn. The lady asked for our 3G proof (cured, vaccinated or tested). I showed them one of our tests, and then she asked whether we were not vaccinated. I said no. She never even looked at the other test. That's pretty careless for that hospital! All she cared about was to get the surgical coat out as well as plastic gloves that she handed us, telling us that we needed to put them on right away to go on inside. I was shocked! We had to put it all on right there and then, while Emmy fearfully kept saying, "No, no!". I tried to calm him down and tell him it was okay, that it had nothing to do with them. For the next 2.5 hours we had to have it all on. My hands were sweating inside the gloves, and my fingers wrinkled, when I took them off. All over the hospital we could tell who was vaccinated and who was not, as the gloves and coats gave it away. Talk about discrimination. It was hard changing diapers and doing certain things with those gloves on. I'm not really sure how it made a difference. We had a negative test. The vaccinated didn't and could have had Covid and did not have the protective gear. When we were done with the tests and left the doctors, Emmy immediately asked me to take it all off, and I had to tell him we'd first had to go to the exit of the hospital, and then we could take it off. After I had done so, I let him take my hand without glove and gave him a kiss.

After they had given us the protective gear, and we had put it on, we went on inside to registration and then on to the waiting room. We had just arrived, and they already knew who we were and asked the kids to come in to be weighed and measured. Emmy went first. They had a seat on a scale, so Emmy just had to sit down to be weighed. Then she measured his head's circumference. Next he had to go to the wall, where his height was measured. Tammy came next, and she also did great. Sammy was also able to sit on the chair by himself to be weighed, and he was able to stand, leaning against the wall, to measure his height. She was surprised at how big the difference in height is between the three. Later I asked to see their weight curve to find out if it was okay, and all three have stayed on the curve, so they are gaining the weight they should.

We went back out to the waiting room and waited to be called in to see the doctors for their 2-hour development test. They have these tests yearly because they are preemies, and they do it now because they actually turned 2 biologically just a few weeks ago.

The kids were playing with the activity boards on the wall until we were called inside.

Four doctors were waiting there for us. There were some toys, and the kids started playing with them. The main doctor sat at the computer and started asking me questions about the kids. I had Sammy on my lap, so we started with him. He was asking about their eating and sleeping, playing and talking and understanding, really everything about them, including their character. After Sammy, we did Tammy, and then Emmy. Tammy was sitting on my lap for a while, and it was clear that she was tired. She's a good sleeper, and it was a shorter than usual night. But they were really having fun with the toys, and there were three other doctors there who could play with them and who kept them busy. After we had finished the questions about Sammy, Randy went nextdoor with him and one of the doctors who was gonna do all the tests with him.

By the time we had finished the questions about the other two, Sammy was also done. And so Tammy, Emmy, the other two doctors and I headed nextdoor as well, for the other two to be tested, each by one of them. They had two kids tables there, and Tammy sat down at one, and Emmy at the other, together with a doctor. They then started doing all these tests with them, one after another, and it took a long time. They were drawing, they were looking at books and talking about pictures, they were stacking and doing other fine-motor skill tests. Obviously they were getting tired at some point. Especially Tammy was tired. In my opinion they did really well going as long as they did. The doctor told me that they were really sweet kids, and so calm, without any drama. I guess that's unusual.

They gave us a short, oral report at the end. Tammy and Emmy had great results, and everbody already knew about Sammy's challenges. We finally said our good-byes; it was already after 11:30. Tammy had hardly eaten anything all day and was still not interested. And they were all tired. We put their coats back on, which was hard with the gloves and coat, and rolled to the exit where we could finally get rid of the protective gear. Then we went to the subway to head back home. We had three subways to take again, which takes as while. They all had squeezy drinks, and then Emmy fell asleep first. He's the one who falls asleep in the stroller at times, while the other two never do. But they did today. Tammy fell asleep next, before we made it onto the third subway, and Sammy fell asleep last. I was pretty tired myself. When we got home at 12:30, they were all asleep.

I picked the girl up first, took her coat off and put her to bed, where she continued sleeping. Then I did the same with Emmy, but he woke up and so Randy sat down with him and put him to bed once he was asleep again. As for Sammy, I left him in the stroller, as in the past he would not fall back asleep after being woken up. I warmed up some food and sat down to eat it. Randy's food got cold as he chose to stay in the chair and take a nap himself.

After about half an hour I heard Sammy who had woken up, got him out of the stroller, and changed his diaper. I decided to try to put him to bed anyway, and surprise, surprise, he actually fell asleep again. So I was the only one awake, and I went to work after having eaten, tired or not. Eventually Randy got up and warmed his food back up.

It was Emmy who woke up first some time after 2 pm, and he wanted to go downstairs, which he did together with Randy. I took some snacks downstairs as well, as they had all skipped lunch. Back upstairs it was not long before Sammy woke up, and his crying woke up Tammy, and so I took them downstairs as well. Of course they were not ready to let me leave right away again. Tammy was holding on to me, and I asked her to let me leave so I could work, but she said no. I finally went upstairs to get something else they needed, and again she held on to me. Randy had to do something, and so I stayed a little. I ended up giving them a few balloons, and they were so excited. I wished I'd had my phone with me to take pictures and video clips. It was so much fun watching them having fun with the balloons, all three of them!

When Randy returned, I pulled away to go upstairs and get some work done. I had already lost the whole morning. I worked a little, but then I heard Emmy cry for a long time, asking Daddy for a pacifier. He had one in his mouth, but wanted another one for his hand. They were all tired and cranky. I finally decided it wasn't worth it and went downstairs. It was about 4:30. Emmy immediately fell into my arms; I had brought him another pacifier. Just this morning the doctor had said to only give him pacifiers to sleep and when he is upset, which was the case anyway. I asked them if they wanted to open up the packages that had arrived, and they love packages, and so Emmy's face lit up right away. We went upstairs, where I opened the packages and let them explore the content. They have been drinking so many squeezy drinks that I'd had to order more, so it was all food for them. Of course they wanted to drink some right away, but I was about to start making their dinner.

Once they understood that, they immediately went to get a chair and move it to the kitchen, so they could stand on it. I started making their food and putting in on their plate so they could eat it. Emmy ate quite a bit, while Tammy was still not eating. And we ran out of salami which they still like a lot and eat all the time, mostly without any bread or anything with it.

After I was done, we went to the dining room, where Tammy at least ate her soup. Emmy was upset about something and didn't want to sit in his chair. They soon went to the bathroom and into the bathtub, and I took their food there as well. I got Tammy to eat a little bread but not much. Emmy ate some more, including his beloved pineapple. Sammy ate everything on his plate, but it was less than usual. They were having fun in the water. We sang all the action songs we know, which they loved. By the time they came out of the water, I had no voice left, as I've had a sore throat for a few days.

By 6:20 pm they were all in bed, which is pretty early. They were tired, and at first Tammy and Emmy were lying down, and I thought they'd be falling asleep soon. However, suddenly they were up on their feet and having fun with each other. Then they got out of their beds. I finally let Randy take my place by their beds, and he stayed with them until they were asleep, and then still stayed for his own nap.

I got myself something to eat, ate, and then went back to work. Time flies, and so it's now midnight, and I still have to do all the cleanup. I sure need to get more sleep tonight.