3 years 5 months 7 days

Day 1255. This morning I had an alarm set for 8 am, even though Emmy is usually up by then. I was pretty tired and waited as long as possible to get up. At 9 am the doorbell rang, and the Mobile Support lady arrived. The kids had already finished eating, but I still needed to finish dressing them. She was admiring the toy workbench that Sammy was sitting by. We talked a little bit, and then she went downstairs to play with the kids. As for me, I was glad to have a morning of doing office work. The lady left at 10:30, and at 11:30 I went to the kitchen to cook. The kids were already coming upstairs to watch videos until it was time to eat. Just after noon we did just that.

They all ate well, then had icecream, then they continued their videos, while I did the cleanup. 1:30 was already approaching, when I put them to bed. I was really tired and had a 2 pm lesson, but sat down by them. Usually they fall asleep fast, but not so today. Normally the boys fall asleep right away, while Tammy needs longer. Today it was Tammy who fell asleep first, and the boys didn't. We tried everything. I started teaching at 2 pm, and they were still up. At some point Emmy did fall asleep, but not Sammy. He actually never slept, in spite of us trying everything. I even left my student a few times to try to help/intervene. Just before 3 pm I was done and picked up Sammy. He ended up having fun with his toys.

I was still so very tired, but there was no time to sleep. With 3:15 approaching I started putting pants on the two other sleeping kids, then they got up, and I put shoes and jackets on them. Just before 3:30 pm we left the house together. Sammy was so tired that he was crying hard. We only had one stroller for Sammy, Emmy was on the board, and Tammy walking or on my shoulders. We took the subway, then another subway for one stop, then we had arrived after a few more steps. It was their second French class at the French Institute in Vienna. We parked the stroller and walked up the staircase to the institute. Sammy had been crying a lot, but now I was carrying him, and he was fine with that. He then was okay during the class, thank God.

We walked straight to our classroom, took our shoes and jackets off and sat down. Other kids were arriving as well, and then the teacher. She started with a greeting song for each kid. Then she had each child put their own picture on the board. She then started with a book that had a story teaching colors and taught them the names of the colors. She then had cards with objects in those colors that they had to put in the right group of that color. Today our three kids were not very motivated and not always a 100% involved. However, they did better than most other kids, and sometimes it seemed pretty chaotic in the room with 8 kids doing different things.

She then gave them printouts of mittens and stickers in different colors to put on the mittens. Our three started sticking and enjoyed doing so. It was a little hard for Sammy. He could pick up the sticker, but then it was always turned the wrong way.

After they were done with the stickers, she got another book out that she read with them. I tried to get our kids to watch and listen and was only partially successful. Emmy kept saying that he does not speak English (he meant French). And I kept telling him that that's why he's in that class. Finally she had them put the pillows and animals up and put the pictures back into the box. Then she did a final song, and the class was over. I suggested to her that maybe she could do songs/dances to get all the kids' attention. I think she'd have more success with that, as kids learn well with songs.

We put their coats and shoes back on and left. There was one little boy who had a French Mom, so he already speaks French, and Tammy was drawn to him. Our kids like making friends. And so they left together, then we walked on the street together and took the subway together. Tammy was delighted about that. And I got to talk to his Mom a little bit - in French, of course. Emmy complained one time that he couldn't understand what we were saying. We got on the same subway after the first one, but then they soon got off, while we had to stay on the train. While I had told them that they had not behaved well enough to watch videos, their crying and drawing people's attention to them finally got me to relent and turn them on.

We got home a good bit before 5:30, which was nice. Randy and the kids went downstairs, while I had half an hour for office work. They came back upstairs before then anyway, asking to watch videos. At 6 pm I started making their dinner, and at 6:30 we sat down at the table to eat. They ate some, then continued eating in the bathtub. Then we got them out and ready for bed. As I was not teaching - thank God, as tired as I was - I did not have to watch the time and was able to read several Bible stories to them. They wanted me to keep going ,but at some point I had to stop. I prayed for them and flew them into bed. Then I sat down by them. Sammy was asleep before I could even turn the light off.

But the other two weren't and actually needed quite a long time to fall asleep. Thankfully Randy was done eating and could soon take my place. I started working on the computer and later got a bite to eat. Now it's goin gon 1 am, and I still need to clean up the kitchen before going to bed.