3 years 5 months 2 days

Day 1250. This morning my alarm went off at 8 am. Normally Emmy joins me in bed, but last night it was Tammy who did so, and Emmy didn't come which basically never happens. We were so tired that even Randy didn't get up right away, and so 9 am was approaching way too quickly. The Mobile Support lady was supposed to arrive at 9 am, and we were glad, when she wrote that she was late. I got the clothes ready for the kids and lay them out for Randy to dress them, as they were still having breakfast and I had to leave to go to the dentist as I'd lost at least two fillings these past few weeks. I would have rather stayed home and made some progress with catching up on office work.

I left the house just after 9 am. It was cold and windy and snowing a little. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. When I reached the subway, I ran into the Mobile Support lady who was on the way to us to play with the kids for 90 minutes. I got on the 9:20 train, then got on another train, then had a long walk to the dentist's office, where I arrived exactly at 10 am. I was glad to leave the cold. I registered and sat down to wait for my turn. Thankfully wait times have been rather short since the beginning of the pandemic. It was soon my turn to go inside, and he redid the two fillings really quickly. By 10:40 I was leaving the building again.

I walked all the way back to the train again and used the time to call our building management company. Our heating stopped working downstairs in the middle of December, and it's still not fixed to this day. I'm getting pretty annoyed with them not doing anything. We now have 16 degrees Celsius downstairs, where the kids play. The lady on the phone told me today that the parts they had ordered in December were arriving next week, so hopefully they'll  come to fix it right away then.

I took two more trains after the first one to get home earlier and arrived just after 11:30 pm. I went straight to the kitchen to make lunch. The kids soon came upstairs to watch videos, and it was already 12:15 before we sat down to eat. Everyone ate and had icecream, then they continued watching. Randy soon left for the grocery store, and at 1:30 I put them to bed for their nap. Sammy fell asleep first, the other two needed a little longer, and in fact Tammy was not asleep yet, when I left. I took a few minutes to set up for my 3 pm lesson, then lay down for a short nap, setting a 45 minute timer, which was the maximum I could do. In fact, I had asked my student if we could start at 2:50, as we had to leave right away after my lesson.
The timer woke me up 10 minutes before my lesson, and I guess that's always why Sammy woke up. I got him out of bed, then started getting ready for my lesson. The other two woke up a little later, and Randy went downstairs with them. I taught until 3:40 and could hear Randy starting to get them ready before I was done. Our train was gonna leave at 3:56, so we had little time to put our coats etc. on and leave the house to make it.

And we did. Sammy was in the stroller and Emmy riding the board attached to it. I was carrying Tammy on my shoulders. That way we could move quickly to make our train, which we did. We got off at our usual stop, bought some chestnuts and took the subway. We had to ride nearly the whole line to get to our destination. When we got out on the street again, it was snowing, windy and cold. But we had a long walk ahead and started walking. I had Tammy on my shoulders again so we could walk as fast as possible.

We finally reached the big event hall, with people coming from every direction to also go inside. There were a lot of people. Once inside the building, we had to line up to show our tickets and for them to look through our bags. Emmy was a little uncomfortable with so many people everywhere, and Sammy was also wondering what was going on. Tammy was just excited and jumping up and down for joy. After we'd got through the line, we had to go where you hand in your coats. We put all our coats in the stroller and left the stroller there. From now on one of us had to carry Sammy, and we also had a diaper bag and some snacks. Next we lined up to get into the hall, where they checked our tickets again and told us where to go. We started going up stairs to get to row 20, where our seats were. You could already see the iceskating rink and decorations for the show. It was a big hall with a lot of people. We got to our row and sat down on our seats. The show was only a few minutes away from starting, so perfect timing. It started just after 5 pm, and little did I know that it would go until 7:30 pm. I had Sammy the whole time, and it worked out a lot better than expected. I was able to keep him happy the whole time, even though he wasn't interested in the show. He only enjoyed the fast music, whenever there was one, and nodded or moved his hand in sync with the rhythm. Surprisingly it was Tammy who did not enjoy the show at all. She kept saying she wanted to go see Paw Patrol, as that's what they had come to see last time in this location. I kept telling her that it was not on right now. Now it was this show, "Holiday On Ice". Emmy was more focused on the show, really watching what they were doing, and it was quite spectacular. I was wondering whether we'd make it to the end of the show. It was only, when there was fire spewing and fireworks that it got Tammy's attention.

After one hour there was a 20 minute break. We got up like most people. I was very thirsty, and the kids wanted popcorn. We walked to our stroller, where I had some water, then bought a big box of popcorn right nearby. Emmy got it, and then Tammy got very upset that she didn't get her own box. I told her that it was so big that it was enough for all five of us, but she didn't care. It took her a while to get over it. They already started ringing the bell, so we made our way back to our seats. All five of us were eating the popcorn, which kept the kids occupied for a while.

The show started again at 6:20 pm, and the second half was more spectacular. But as time went on, Sammy got more antsy. I kept thinking it was gonna end, but it didn't. After another hour we decided it was time to leave, whether it was over or not. All three kids were ready to go home, and it was already 7:20 pm. And so we left. As we walked out the hall, it soon became clear that it had been the last song. While we were getting dressed to go outside, more and more people came out of the hall, hoping to beat the crowd, so we moved on as well.

When we left the building, we were surprised to see how hard it was snowing, to the point that the ground was covered with snow. Tammy was so very excited about it, jumping up and down, while holding my hand walking down the street. We got to the bus stop, waited a little, then got on the bus. Tammy and Emmy were watching videos until we reached our destination. We got off, took the elevator down and then back up on the other side of the street and got on the tram arriving right away. After three stops we got off to take the subway. The same only elevator that had been broken on Tuesday and Wednesday was still broken, so we took the escalator again, this time without incidents. Then we got on the subway to ride it home. It was nearly 8:30, when we got home, so pretty late.

While the kids had had some snacks, they hadn't really had much yet. I immediately started cutting some fruit and making bread with salami for them, but it was the faster version and the bathtub version, skipping first sitting down at the table. They went straight into the bathtub, where they ate, then we got them out and ready for bed. It was sure late! I still read a Bible story to them, but only one, then I prayed for them and put them to bed. I sat down by them, and the boys were soon asleep. Not so Tammy. I walked away before she was asleep to get something to eat myself, and she wasn't happy. Finally Randy sat down by her, and that was enough for her to finally fall asleep. I ate, then started working on the pictures. Now it's after 1 am, and my eyes keep falling shut. It's time to clean up the kitchen and go to bed.