3 years 4 months 18 days

Day 1235. This morning I set my alarm for 8:30, as Christine (Caritas) was coming at 9 am. I had gone to bed at 2:30, and it always takes me a little while to fall asleep. As you can imagine, I was pretty tired this morning and had to force myself out of bed. The kids were having breakfast, when Christine arrived. Then I dressed them, and she went downstairs with them. Randy left at 9:30 to go to their pediatrician and pick up a paper. I first pulled some suitcases out and threw stuff for our trip into them, then sat down at the computer to work. At 10:30 a good friend of mine arrived to bring us some clothes, primarily. She went downstairs for a little bit. Emmy showed her how well he plays the drums, and Sammy clung to me a little unsure about this lady who'd come. We hadn't seen her since the kids' birthday. We were all sitting on the floor together, and Christine then played the kids being a pizza that she was baking, which they enjoyed.

Just after 11 am my friend left, and I went to the kitchen to make lunch. Randy returned not long before noon. Tammy and Emmy had already come upstairs and started watching videos. Christine and Sammy stayed downstairs until I called them up to eat. We sat down at the table, and everyone ate and some had icecream. We dressed them again, but it was nearly 1 pm and therefore time to lie down for their nap. I sat down by them and encouraged them to sleep. Tammy was still awake, when I walked away at 1:30. I went straight to bed myself and set my timer for half an hour.

When it went off at 3 pm, I got up to get ready to leave, then got Emmy followed by Tammy and put their shoes, coats and hats on and put them into the strollers. Since Sammy's only January physiotherapy session at the center was canceled, he and Randy joined us as well. We were going to a try-out session of a new dance class since they stopped going to dancing school in December. We took the subway to the end, then had to walk to the school where the class was taking place. We had never been there before so we did not go there the fastest way, trying to figure out where it was, but we got there in time. We walked into the school and found our way to where the class was taking place. There were a few other kids waiting. Then the teacher came and asked the kids to follow her up the stairs to the gym. She said that the parents were not supposed to be in the class but could come watch the last 5-10 minutes. That was unexpected. She then allowed the parents to walk up the stairs to the top, then she took the kids to the middle of the room on top of the stairs to start the class. One kid stayed behind with her Mom, not wanting to join the class. Tammy and Emmy went as they had each other. Sammy stayed with Randy and me. I wanted to see what was going on in the class, so I walked up and looked from time to time. I was having fun with Sammy, walking with him up and down the stairs and throwing him around, making him laugh.

Sometimes I saw the kids participating, other times not so much. Then the teacher called the parents up into the room, and we sat down on the floor to watch. The music was not kids' music, and she was doing actual dance moves and nothing really fun. Our kids tried to copy her, but it was hard and not fun. They did not like the class and neither did I. In fact, we left a few minutes before the class was over.

Tammy had spotted a playground next to the school through the window and wanted to go there. As I had no afternoon students, we had some time to do so, and it was all dry and not that cold. So we left the building, went around it, and got to the playground.

The kids hadn't been to a playground in months, so they were eager to make the most of it. Emmy ran straight to this platform that turns, but it wasn't that easy to make it turn. Then they went to the trampoline in the ground. Tammy then spotted a horizontal net and ran there to climb it. She was having a hard time, falling in between the ropes, but she didn't give up and kept going. The boys then joined her there, having fun climbing around.

They then ran back to the other area and climbed up the ladder there. However, there was no slide to go down on the other side, though it was obviously meant to be there, and so Tammy got upset as she had nearly reached the top and didn't know how to climb back down. I had to climb up there to help her come back down.

We had been there a while so it was time to leave. Emmy then fell with his palms on the gravelly ground and started crying, as the gravel had torn open some of the dead skin on his hand that's recovering from the burn. It was mainly shock to see his hand like that than actual pain.

We loaded them into the strollers and started walking back to the subway. There was a grocery store right there, and we spontaneously decided to go in and buy what Randy would have had to go buy tomorrow otherwise. It was a quick run, but we always get more than planned, especially with the kids. We mainly bought stuff for sandwiches and snacks to take with us on our train ride on Saturday.

We left the grocery store and took the subway home. Tammy and Emmy were watching videos, while Sammy was being cranky. We were on an old subway train, so there were no buttons to push. By 5 pm we were back home. We stood outside our building waiting for Randy to get out the key to let us into the building, but he looked everywhere and could not find it. He came to the conclusion that he had lost it. What were we gonna do? The only other person with a key is my Mom, and she's all the way across town. Randy then suggested I'd go inside and see whether he had left the key in our door. So I rang the neighbors' bell to get into the building and walked to our apartment. There was no key in the door. Then I pushed the handle down, and the door opened. The key was actually in the lock on the INSIDE, so Randy had never taken it out and locked the door. Anyone could have walked into our apartment the whole time we were gone. But we were just relieved that the key had not been lost.

There was still some time until 6 pm, when I'd have to start making their dinner. Randy and the kids went downstairs, while I started preparing my evening lessons. However, I soon heard Sammy crying really hard and went downstairs to check on him. He was very upset, and so it took me quite a while to calm him down. One reason was that he had wanted to play the drums, but they had been taken away from him. So I asked Randy to get him a drum, and he was happy then. Emmy was showing his skills at the drum set, while Tammy was looking at a new book my friend had brought. As they were all happy again, I returned upstairs to work. Soon Emmy showed up, then Tammy, as they wanted to watch videos. Because of all the interruptions, I ended up working until 6:20 before going to the kitchen to make their dinner.

And time was short anyway. I worked as quickly as possible, and it was not that long after 6:30, when they sat down at the table to eat. They then continued in the bathtub, while having fun. I set an alarm for 7:30 to start getting them out, so there'd be enough time to put them to bed and still read them a story, which I ended up doing. I had time to pray for them, but it was Randy who brushed their teeth tonight. It was really close to 8 pm, when I sat down for my 8 pm lesson downstairs. And I could still hear the kids for a while.

I then taught from 8 to 10 pm, first Business English, then German to a refugee. Then I still prepared my morning lesson for tomorrow and went back upstairs to grab something to eat. Needless to say, it was so much later than usual that I was eating and then starting to work on today's pictures. Because of that, it's now 2:20 am and I still have to clean up the kitchen.