3 years 3 months 2 days

Day 1189. Finally Sunday! When you work, you appreciate weekends a lot more. No alarm this morning. We were able to get up slowly, and it's the only day I let the kids watch videos in the morning, so we can stay in bed longer. After breakfast, I cleaned them up and dressed them and took them downstairs, where we read a Bible story together. It was 10:15 before I was back upstairs and sitting down by my computer to do office work, and so I had only just over an hour to do so before I had to go to the kitchen to cook.

Just after noon we sat down to eat. Everyone ate, then had icecream, then I cleaned them up, and they continued watching Paw Patrol, which they had started before lunch. At 1:15 I put them to bed for their nap. The boys were asleep first, and I walked away before Tammy was asleep. I needed some sleep bad myself, but in the end I only slept about 5 minutes before my alarm went off. Sigh. It was 2:30 and time for me to make their dinner-to-go boxes, as we needed to leave at 3:15. And then Sammy, and then Emmy, were up. A few minutes later Tammy also woke up. It was not worth going downstairs. After I was done with the dinner boxes, we got them dressed and ready to get and left the house on time.

Usually we leave the house an hour later, but today we had a children's concert to go to before the church service, and it started at 4 pm. We took the subway and then the train and got to the location in a park 15 minutes early, which ended up being a good thing. There was already a good number of people, and we were lucky to get seats in the middle. They had put benches up in the park. They also had potato slices cooking, as well as hot children's punch, and it was all free. Tammy came with me to get the potatoes and then sat down with the others, while I stood in line for the punch that I then took to them. Then we waited for the concert to start, and it soon did. And the guy was really funny. Emmy was laughing the whole time in the beginning, even when it seemed over the top to laugh. But he (Bernard Fibich) did do a great job with the children, and he was funny. He had them do actions, and asked them questions, interacting a lot with the many children there. I had Sammy with me, as he wanted Mommy, while Tammy was sitting in Daddy's lap, and Emmy was between us. He wanted to see better and ended up kneeling on the bench, but fell off twice. Sammy was the one getting antsy after a while, and as much as I tried, I could not get him happy any longer. Randy finally walked away with him, which didn't help things, as he just started crying harder, but at least he was not bothering anyone at the concert. Tammy and Emmy did not have much patience left anyway, and so we stayed 10 more minutes and then decided to leave before the concert was over. I was getting tired of trying to keep them sitting on my knees without sliding off. We went to the strollers and found Randy and Sammy. I then pushed the stroller with Sammy, and he was perfectly happy again. We walked to the tram stop, and the tram came right away. After we got off, we had to take another tram, then we still had the hill to walk up to church.

We got to church just before 5:30, so nearly half an hour after the service had started. Last week Tammy was sick, so we hadn't been there in two weeks. It was nice to be back. We went to our usual spot in the front, and the kids immediately  picked up streamers to dance with. I had Sammy, and once Randy returned from the bathroom he took Sammy, and I got to go myself. I then ran into someone I had wanted to talk with in a while, and while we were talking, Tammy was walking up to me. She had been looking for me. Together we returned to the sanctuary.
At 5:45 we went upstairs together and were not the first ones in the toddler room. I left them there and returned to the sanctuary, as it was my turn to enjoy the service. And I sure enjoyed the worship time. I knelt on the floor, my head on the chair, and enjoyed God's presence like I rarely get to do now. Then the preaching started.

At 6:45 I left the sanctuary to go back upstairs. The kids were happy to see me. And surprisingly so was Randy who waved me over. He had met a lady who had a daughter like Sammy, and she told us about a therapy that had greatly helped her daughter. Today she's 21 and pretty much normal. I was intrigued and continued talking with her. Tammy came to me with a book that she wanted me to read to her, and I kept asking her to wait. Finally the lady had to go take care of her grandson, and I started reading the book to Tammy. I've now looked up the therapy and the clinic online and really like what I saw. It gives me great hope for Sammy.

We didn't play long, as it was time to clean up and leave. I carried Sammy back to the sanctuary and had Tammy with me as well. Sammy was already saying Anna's name and looking forward to seeing her. And there she was. Sammy stretched out his arms to her, and she took him. I then waited for Emmy, and together with his sister we walked on to find Sonja, which we did. We were waiting for her, when my friend Renate (who was on the ministry team) stepped up to me and offered to pray for me. I'd never say no to that, and so I got the blessing of being prayed for. Then we finally connected with Sonja, who hasn't been able to come to our home in weeks. It was nice to see her again, and the kids were really excited to see her too. And then I somehow ended up talking to someone I've known for nearly as long as I've been saved, and I really enjoyed talking to him, as I rarely get to do so. We haven't been this relaxed after a service in a long time, talking to people instead of looking at the clock and trying to make the next train.

But then it was really time to get moving. It was too late to take the 8 pm train, and as we didn't want to wait 30 minutes for the next train, we took a different route home. We took a tram, then two subways, and the kids were eating food and watching videos. All Sammy wanted to do was to push all the buttons that were nearby. We got home just after 8:30, so only a few minutes earlier than we would have by taking the train. We got them ready for bed, and by 9:15 they were all in bed, and thankfully they fell asleep fast. Randy never had to come sit with them. I walked away and started making my salad. It took me a while before I was done eating it, then I started working on the pictures. It got later and later, and now it's once again 1:30, and I'm really tired. It's time for me to clean the kitchen and then go to bed.