3 years 4 months 6 days

Day 1223. These past three days I did not write any reports, as we stayed home. I actually enjoyed not running  from place to place, but I still had students every day of the week, and nearly every morning. And so I especially enjoyed not having a morning student today. I did not have to watch the clock, and so it was 10 am before we sat down for breakfast.

After breakfast I went straight to work making a casserole for lunch, and the kids were excited and eager to help me. They both moved their chairs to the kitchen to climb up and did a great job helping me whisk and pour and stir. I turned the stove off and turned to the sink, when I heard Emmy scream. He was just screaming but it quickly became clear that he had touched the hot stove and burned his hand. I put it under the cold water, then Randy got frozen peas out for him to put his hand on. He was still crying and saying his whole hand was hurting. Only with his hand on the cold was the pain bearable. 11 am was already approaching, and they wanted to watch something, so I let them stay upstairs. Emmy lay down in his bed and put his hand on the peas next to him, while Tammy stood in his bed, so they could both watch a movie. Randy put Sammy on a new chair he had bought and sat down with him. I had put lavender oil on Emmy's hand (the best for burns), but we decided that Randy would go get some cream for burns and bandage at the pharmacy. And so he left. Sammy sat so well on the chair and was happy playing with the  books all by himself, which was great. It allowed me to keep working, and I just checked on him from time to time.

Just after noon the casserole was done, and I portioned it out. Randy also returned. He had bandaids instead of bandages. Every time Emmy took his hands off the peas, he was screaming in pain. Now blisters were starting to become visible. I put the cream on his band and put the bandaids around his hand somehow. Soon he stopped crying; the cream must have helped.

We sat down to eat, but Emmy had no appetite and went to bed. The rest of us had lunch, then Tammy joined her brother, and they continued watching videos.  Randy and I had decided that it was better for me to take Emmy to the emergency room. And so I got dressed, then dressed Emmy, and while Tammy and Sammy got ready to lie down for a nap, I left with Emmy just before 1:15 pm.

He was actually his cheerful self again. We rode the subway for two stops and got off by the hospital. Before we went inside, we made a stop at the bank and at the grocery store. Randy had not been able to get the third cheese for our cheese fondue, and so I was gonna take every chance to try to find it myself. However, the store there didn't have it either. And so we crossed the rode to enter the hospital.

There was a short line at the entrance. They pointed us to the staircase to go up to the kids' emergency room. There was a good number of children there, but it wasn't too bad. I waited at the registration desk for a long time until someone told me you had to ring the bell for someone to come. I then registered Emmy, and we sat down to wait for him to be called in. There was a big TV screen with some animated show, and so Emmy was watching. However, we waited hardly at all until his name was already called. He had just put a cookie into his mouth as he had missed lunch and was getting hungry.

We went inside, they wrote down some information, and were puzzled about the bandaids around his hand. I took them off, they looked at his hand, then gave him some pain medication to drink. They told us to go back into the waiting room, that the medication had to kick in, and then he'd be called back in.

And so we sat back down, close to the door where we'd go in next time. Emmy was watching Paw Patrol on my phone, while we were waiting. This time we were waiting longer. Then they called us inside, and they had him lie down on a bed. A man and a woman came to take care of him. They looked at the blisters and considered opening them up, but they were all flat. There was nothing to open up. Emmy had blisters on all the tips of his fingers as well as his whole palm. They put some stuff on them all and then asked him what color he wanted for his bandage. He chose green. They then wrapped his hand completely up with it. They said he would have to come back in three days for the bandage to be changed, and also said he would not be able to go to swim class a week from tomorrow.

We left the hospital, got back on the subway, rode it for one stop and then walked into another grocery store, where they did not have the cheese. We bought a few other items instead. Emmy was actually enjoying this time alone with Mommy from beginning to end. From there we walked back home, where we arrived at 3 pm.

When we walked into the appartment, it was dark, and Emmy's siblings were sleeping. Randy said that Sammy had only just fallen asleep. Emmy went straight to bed himself; he was pretty tired. So was I. I soon lay down and closed my eyes myself, but I'm not sure I ever got to sleep. Tammy soon woke up and came to me, then Sammy woke up. We were still planning to go downtown to the New Year's Eve kids' program they had there, from 2 to 6 pm, so it was about time to get going. Especially as I had found a cheese store downtown that was close to there and was still hoping to get my third cheese there.

We left the house just before 4:30 pm, took the subway, then another one and got off downtown Vienna. There was already A LOT OF people. We stood in line at the elevator to get up to street level, as we had both strollers with us. Then we walked in the direction of the cheese store, which was the opposite direction of where the kids' program was. We walked right by St. Stephen's Cathedral, the symbol of the city of Vienna. They had a huge screen on the outside, broadcasting the mass going on on the inside. Our kids have never been inside a historic, catholic church like this. They started building the cathedral in the 1100s and finished it over 400 years later. Now it's 444 years old. So we spontaneously walked inside, as people were going in and coming out all the time. However, as soon as we were inside, the kids were scared. It was huge, obviously, but they've been scared of catholic stuff before, last time it was a priest. I tried to point out to them the amazing architecture, but they just wanted to leave, and so we did.

We continued walking, enjoying all the Christmas lights everywhere. Finally we reached the small Swiss cheese store. It was tiny, so I walked in by myself. There were two other people there, as well as two employees, but they told me that the store was closed. It was 5 pm, and this was my last chance. He told me to come back on Monday, and I told him I didn't need it anymore then. Suddenly the one guy decided to sell it to me after all, as he was right there, and so was the cheese. I paid 15€ for the little piece, and left happy. Goal accomplished!

We turned around and walked back the way we came, passed the cathedral and continued on. There were even more people there than before, and at times it was hard to get through with strollers, and sometimes people were not happy about them, but there were a lot more strollers than I had expected. We made it to the street we needed, where there were fewer people, and walked on until we reached the square, where the kids' program was happening. It was already going on 5:30, and the program ended at 6 pm. We walked through the crowd as far as we could make it, then stopped. The only way the kids could see anything was to sit on our shoulders, so I lifted Tammy up, and Randy Emmy. Sammy stayed in the stroller, and I had him kneel or stand there, as much as I was able to hold him up without Tammy falling off.

They had a guy with a rat puppet on the stage. They have a show on the radio and are sometimes on TV, so many children know them, but not ours. They had only known one character of the show, and it had been on right at the beginning. But it didn't matter, as they still enjoyed the show. A few times Emmy was laughing. They did a quiz, playing the melodies of kids' shows and having everyone guess what show it was, but it was the shows the parents had watched as children, not today's shows. In any case, the response of all the kids there showed that the parents show the kids the shows they'd watched themselves, and that includes our kids. They knew many of the melodies, though not all of them. They were really excited, when they recognized them, and then the guy on the stage would play the whole melody for everyone to sing along. The parents sure enjoyed the show as much as the kids.

In front of us was a lady in a wheelchair who soon started interacting with Sammy. She must have noticed Sammy's challenges. She had a lit-up rod with a star that she pointed at Sammy so that he could touch it, and Sammy was interested in it. We exchanged a few words with her, when the program was over at 6 pm, then we went on our way to go back to the subway.

We went a different way, passing through crowds and seeing more Christmas lights and decorations. We finally reached the one elevator and lined up behind the others waiting to get on. There were more and more people, and in fact at 10 pm they were going to close this subway stop. We got to the subway, got on, then got on another one. The kids were watching Paw Patrol, while Sammy wanted to push the door button. We were all getting hungry; normally they have dinner at 6:30, today we got home at 6:40 pm.

The kids continued watching, while I went straight to the kitchen to make the cheese fondue. It was my first time ever making one. Growing up, we often had fondue on New Year's Eve, sometimes meat, sometimes cheese. I love melted cheese and hadn't had one in a long time. With us being in Vienna and on our own, I wanted to make the day/evening special, and so I decided to make the fondue. I looked up an alcohol-free recipe, and I have to say I was surprised at how good it was! But it was a lot of work, and so it was after 7:30 before we sat down to eat. I used three different cheeses that had to be stirred in to melt. I asked Randy to stir the cheese, so I could cut the bread. Randy does not like smelly cheese, and so he put a mask on his face. It was hilarious! He then actually liked the fondue and said it tasted a lot better than it smelled.

I had bought an electric fondue pot for the occasion, which is a lot better than the open fire. But the cord was pretty short, and so we all huddled around one end of the table. The metal skewers were pretty sharp, and so we quickly decided to put the bread on them, then the skewer into the cheese and the bread with cheese on the plates ourselves, rather than them doing so. And then Tammy wouldn't even try it, even though she likes cheese. She never likes trying new things. Emmy ate quite a bit, and so did Sammy. However, I once dripped hot cheese onto the back of his hand, and he started crying.  I put oil on it right away. He cried a little bit and stopped eating, but after a while he ate a little more. I sure enjoyed it and ate a lot, but we didn't eat it all. The kids then all had icecream, as Emmy and I had bought a box of different ones today, to change it up a little. Then we cleaned them up, brushed their teeth, put their pj's on, and they went to bed, where I prayed for them.

Because it was New Year's Eve, I told them they could watch a movie in bed. And so Tammy and Emmy lay next to each other in Emmy's bed. It was already 9 pm, and so I expected them to fall asleep quickly while watching. How wrong I was! Sammy was soon asleep, but the other two watched the whole movie, until 10:30 pm! I could not believe it! I had already started working on today's pictures, and then Emmy wanted me to sit in the chair by them, so I sat down with my computer there and continued working. It wasn't long until they were asleep, and I could leave there to be a little more comfortable working.

We had told them we'd wake them up before midnight to go to the roof to watch the fireworks. At the hospital I had shown Emmy a video of fireworks so he'd know what to expect, but Tammy had not seen it. At 11:45 we woke them up and put snowsuits on them, as those were easiest, as well as boots they could easily put on their naked feet. Then we walked to the elevator and went up to the top floor. The kids were still excited about the adventure, but that was about to change. Once we got off the elevator, the door to the roof was right there. You could already hear the noise from the fireworks and see some lights, and the kids were already scared. We walked outside and were the first ones there, but more families were joining us soon, including our immediate neighbors. And Tammy and Emmy were screaming the whole time. The fireworks were actually amazing and going up everywhere. It's more rural, where we live, and so people have more possibilities for fireworks. I turned the live show from Austrian TV on on my phone to know what time it was, but then I was taking pictures. And so we never counted down, and never knew exactly, when the New Year had started. A few minutes into the New Year the fireworks were decreasing a little, and we had seen enough, and as the kids were still screaming, we decided to leave. I had held Sammy the whole time, and he'd been fine. We took the elevator back down, and I danced with each kid a little bit in the hallway. That's another tradition in Vienna, dancing waltz at the beginning of the New Year. I asked the kids why they had cried, and Emmy said it was so loud, while Tammy said she didn't know. We took their clothes back off and put them back to bed. Emmy insisted I sit down by them, and so I took my computer to continue working and sat down. They were soon asleep again. 

Now it's nearly 2 am, and I'm glad I've already cleaned up the kitchen. Time for bed!