27 months 26 days

Day 849. It was 12:30 am before I made it to bed.  I just wanted to sleep, but Emmy was already lying in our bed, asking me to come lie down, and as soon as I was lying next to him, the girl also came. As if it wasn't challenging enough to have two kids next to me, who wake up and toss and turn, and who I'm making sure don't fall off the bed, Sammy woke up frequently crying hard. I was so extremely tired this morning! Tammy was up at 7 am. Emmy still slept a little longer, as he had stayed awake for a while at some point during the night. And so it was 7:30 today, before we got up. I really did not want to.

We fed the cats, and then I started making their breakfast. No omelet today as they haven't cared much about it. Instead I made some oatmeal with milk for Tammy, as she's been eating mine, and made cereal for Emmy. They also ate watermelon, but for some reason refused to eat the pineapple, when they had eaten a whole one at once yesterday. Tammy wanted to eat what I was eating and wasn't convinced that her bowl had the exact same food in it. So I poured it into my bowl and fed her from it.

After breakfast I cleaned them up, we dressed them, and went to the living room to read a Bible story, and then to open the advent calendars. I cleaned up from breakfast and went to the back. I was so very tired that I just wanted to lie down and sleep. I lay down, and as usual, 15 minutes later Randy was banging on the door. I got up and did some house work, and then I got my computer out to work. I was still so very tired, but started working anyway.

I heard some bleating and went to the door, where I found Tammy sitting on a sheep! Amadou had put her on it and was holding her. She had a big smile on her face.

The kids came to me frequently. I soon noticed that the boys' bodies were hot; both had elevated temperatures and were pretty cranky all day long. For me this is the second day with a sore throat, and my nose has been runny constantly all day, plus I've had a headache for much of the day, simply feeling miserable. But I've been powering on anyway.

Paul has been gone all day and only arrived in the afternoon. He bought 2100 shoes to distribute in Bamako and the villages for Christmas today, and that was no small undertaking.

At 11:15 I went to the kitchen to start cooking. Randy was hammering around behind closed doors,s so that it was up to me and Margit to keep the kids happy, which was not easy with them feeling not well. Tammy only had a little bit of a runny nose, but joined in the crankiness.

At noon we sat down to eat. Tammy ate lots of chicken, but little to no rice, while Emmy ate nothing, and Sammy had no appetite either. I got the yoghurt out, and they all had some. Then I took them to the bathtub to clean them up. I dressed them, and then it was nap time.

It was still relatively early, just after 12:30. But the boys being sick, they both fell asleep quickly and were sleeping by 12:45, and the girl was asleep 5 minutes later. That might have been a new record for Mali! I got up from the bed, where I had lied down between them, and went back to work.

Emmy raised up several times, and each time I helped him fall back asleep. But then Sammy cried, and everyone was up, and it was still rather early. However, I could not get them to go back to sleep, after I had taken Sammy to Randy, and so everyone was up.

And cranky, wanting to be held. Randy tried to feed them snacks, but they were not interested, and I tried to work, but they kept coming so I'd hold them. At one point they watched a few Veggie Tales minutes on my lap, while I was working at the same time.

Randy disappeared again to work on his project, and Sammy was just crying with Margit, so I picked him up, but there is only so much I can do with one hand. At point I had him and the other two also wanted to sit in my lap, which is not possible. I finally convinced Randy to stop tinkering and help with the cranky kids instead.

I received the first batch of Christmas drawings from our sponsored kids and started scanning them in to send to the sponsors for Christmas. Usually we get all those done earlier; Paul left again to try to pick up more drawings.

It was late and surprising, when Sarata came over to play with the kids, and it was also surprising to hear Tammy laugh so much, playing with her. As for Emmy, you could tell he was sick as he was really quiet.

At 5:30 I started making their dinner, and we already sat down to eat before 6 pm. I don't know why I make omelets as nobody ate any of it. The same was true for plaintains. Tammy was cxrying, wanting to sit in my lap, and after a while I let her, and only then she started eating watermelon. Emmy just sat in his chair silently, with his pacifier, not eating anything and not talking, which is so unlike him.

I took them to the bathtub, where Tammy was having lots of fun, and so did Sammy, once I let him play with the faucet. When I handed him to Randy to take him out, he was upset and started crying, because he wanted to keep playing. I then got the other two out, and we got them all ready for bed. They were already in bed by 6:45, but Emmy and Sammy fell asleep pretty much immediately. The girl was wide awake, it seemed, but it still only took half an hour and she already fell asleep at 7:15. 

But when I slowly got up from between them, she raised her head up and cried for me to lie back down. I came close to her while standing up, and she fell back asleep, but the same thing happened again. And Sammy kept starting to cry. Emmy was asleep most of the time, but also raised his head up at times. I was glad, when they were finally sleeping and I could go get myself something to eat.

After having eaten, I went back to work. But this being 3 days before Christmas, I was starting to get antsy about finishing the Christmas gift bags  for the sponsored kids, 51 in total. We had already done the school materials and hygienic articles. We still had all the candy left to do. The problem is that there is no way to do this during the day, and at a night we're too tired. But tonight we just did it. I got everything ready, while Randy put all the candy into the bags, which took a while. I continued working on the computer, but my eyes keep falling shut, and when I open them back up, I see what nonsense I've written and need to correct it. I'm sure I've left tempy of typos to be corrected.

Now Randy has finished the 51 bags for our sponsored kids, and I'm done writing and looking forward to going to bed. I just hope we get more sleep tonight than last night.