27 months 25 days

Day 848. I was so very tired last night, falling asleep while working. At 11:45 pm I went to bed. They were all in their own bed at that time, but of course it took just 5 minutes before Tammy came to join us and sleep between us. She was the only one until the morning hour, but she frequently turns and cries for stuff in her sleep, waking me up, and she had milk a few times. Emmy came around 6 am, but never fell asleep, and by 6:30 they were up for good. I thought they's sleep longer today having gone to bed later last night, but no such luck.

And so I got up at 6:30 and went to the kitchen to make their breakfast after having given the cats theirs. Before we sat down to eat, Paul arrived to get the money for his errands today. Emmy immediately asked Paul to take him to the sheep, and Tammy then did the same, holding up her shoes to be put on so they could go outside. But it was breakfast time, and Paul left.

After breakfast I cleaned them up and dressed them, and then we went into the living room to read a Bible story and open the advent calendars. Then it was time for me to go to work. It was 8:30, when I closed the door, and I knew I had limited time until they would come back here to see me. I got so very tired while working that I had to put my head on the desk and close my eyes for a few minutes. As expected, at 9 am Randy banged on the door because he had to change a diaper, and then they stayed back in the room with me. They wanted to call Grandma who was not available, and so we called Sonja, who we did reach. We were all happy to see each other. Randy came by and put Sammy in my lap as well. The cat also came over, touching our legs, which freaked out Emmy who pulled his legs up. They've been provoking the cat, so she's become defensive around them. In any case, they started climbing and moving and coming and going, always moving, while trying to talk to Sonja. We had fun anyway.

When Margit arrived, they all went outside together to go see the sheep, which gave me a few quiet minutes again. Then Margit decided to do some crafts with them - their first time - and I gave her paper, scissors and glue. Emmy was not interested, but she made sheep's ears for Tammy and Emmy, and Emmy did put them on, even though Sammy's were a little too small for him.

I was able to do some work, with the kids coming and going, as usual. Emmy was particularly cranky. At one point I had them both on my lap watching a few minutes of Veggie tales, and as lunch was approaching, Margit had her phone out letting them watch videos, but Emmy wasn't even that interested at that point.

At noon we finally sat down to eat. The food was really hot, and even though I had warned them, Emmy started crying because it was too hot. I then blew on a few spoonfuls for them, and Randy put ice into their soup. Tammy and Emmy finished their bowls again. They really like the lentil soup. All three got a little gummy bear as a reward, and then they had yoghurt.

I had just finished washing and dressing them, when Paul returned from his errands and needed me. That meant that they were running around and playing with Randy, until he left and I could return to the bedroom. It was a fight, as usual, to get them to lie down and sleep, and we had to hold them down against their will at times. By 1:15 they were all asleep. I was lying in the middle, with Tammy on my left, her head on my belly, and Emmy on my right, his head on my arm. I was so tired myself that I allowed myself to fall asleep. At 2 pm I decided it was time to get up and use the quiet time to get some work done.

Just before 3 pm the girl raised her head, and I went over to her to get her to fall back asleep. I had to leave the room, and that was enough for her to get up, and then Emmy got up as well. Just waking up they wanted me to hold them. But I had a stack of Christmas presents I needed to wrap. I handed Emmy to Daddy against his will, but he was soon okay with that. When Randy needed to hand him back to me, he didn't want to leave either. In the end I got all the presents wrapped, after a lot of interruptions. Since I had found the missing Christmas tree hooks, Randy put the hooks on the remaining chocolates, but I never got to put them all on the tree.

Paul had brought a little stick to play the little drum with that we bought for Emmy right at the beginning, and Emmy immediately started using it, playing hard, with Tammy dancing, which was hilarously. Thankfully I captured some of it on video.

When Fanta came over to do housework, her two youngest came with her. They started playing together and having lots of fun. Esther is a year older than ours, and Amaga a year younger. I had to put all the just-wrapped Christmas presents on the table we have for them, and in such a way that all the names were readable. The Malian kids love coming over and looking to see whether their name is anywhere on the table, and then guessing what is in the package. Today I had just the little ones, and I had to keep telling them not to touch anything.

They were having fun with the carry-on dogs again. Tammy was pulling Amaga round, while Esther was pulling Emmy. Then I gave them the Christmas song advent calendar, as I had to remove it to put the presents up, and they enjoyed pushing the buttons and listening to the German songs. The kids were pretty wild, and Amaga likes to hit the others, but so do ours. I had Sammy at that point, and once I was done and moved on to the next thing on my to-do list, it was Margit who took care of him. Randy was working on some project. He's usually the one taking care of Sammy. Sammy often cries, when neither one of us is around, but this afternoon Margit spent a lot of quality time with him, and he was fine. She tried to teach him to say "yes", as Sammy only says "no".

It was around 5 pm before I could go back to my computer to work, but I only had half an hour, and of course Tammy and Emmy came to be with me. At 5:30 I went to the kitchen to get dinner ready. Tammy wanted to watch babies and then monkeys, and so I set my phone on the floor, against the wall, for her to watch. Paul had bought some pineapple that I was cutting up, and once they had figured that out, they kept coming to me get pineapple and ate quite a bit that way. Emmy had wanted some bread with cheese earlier and ate it every time he came and I put a piece into his mouth. But imagine that, they ate neither bread nor pineapple once it was 6 pm and we put them into their chairs for dinner. They weren't interested in the omelet either, just in the watermelon. And Tammy was crying hard, wanting to sit in my lap, and I finally let her. There she was willing to eat watermelon, then they all had yoghurt.

Once they were done with that, it was time for the bathtub, where they were haiving lots off fun. So much so that Sammy was very upset, when we got him out. Tammy and Emmy followed suit. We got them ready for bed, I prayed for them, and we put them to bed. But that doesn't mean they go to sleep. I lay down between Tammy and Emmy to try to get them to lie down and sleep, but it was a challenge. I thought that they were tired, but it still took 45 minutes, until 7:45, before they were finally asleep in my arms - Tammy on the left, and Emmy on the right. I successfully got up from between them. Randy was still sitting by Tammy, resting his head.

We went into the living room together, with me holding my computer. At 7 pm the Austrian team coming to Mali had gathered online to pray, and they knew we'd join them as soon as we could. We sat in the living room and joined the meeting, and still went for more than an hour. We prayed and we talked about their time in Mali, and it was great to see their excitement about coming.

It was 9 pm, when the meeting ended, and high time for us to get some food. I ate and then went back to work, but having had little time at the computer today, I was behind. And that's why it's after midnight right now, which doesn't happen often any more.