3 years 9 months 16 days

Day 1384. It was another tough early morning after a long night. And Emmy was up at 7 am again and kept coming to me for stuff, even though I'd ask him every single time to let me sleep. One time it was to get the story-telling headset, another the crayons and coloring pages, or to open a squeezie for him. At some point Randy got up and made breakfast for them. Once they were done eating, I heard him say that it was going on 9:45 am, and so I quickly got up to get ready and to get them ready.

At 10 am we left the house, took the subway downtown, and then walked to the music school. On the way there we stopped at a drugstore, so I could pick up a few items. We got to the school on time and went inside the classroom.

There were three other students there today. The teacher started with a greeting song for everyone, then asked them to come to the front and sit on the floor. She then did two action songs with them. Next she put a red and green sticker on fingers two and three and a picture of part of a piano keyboard on the wall. She also had those same two stickers on two of the piano keys. Then she did a simple song, where the kids were supposed to hit the red key with the red finger and the green key with the green finger. She tapped it as well on the board, while they were tapping on the board, and as far as I could tell from where I was, they were doing a great job.

Then she had them sit down by their keyboards and put the same two stickers on the actual keyboard. Then they put the book with the song on a book stand in front of them and played that same song again on their keyboard. In a sense they read music for the first time, when they played that song off the sheet! Tammy did now want to do it, so I helped Emmy do it right.

Then they went to the front, where they did the same game as last time. One kid stood in the middle with the three colors of a traffic light. When they held up the green card, the others around him were going really fast in a circle. When they held up the yellow card, everything was walking slowly, and with the red card, everyone stopped. The kids were enjoying having that power of everybody else and having fun.

Then the teacher handed out guitars to everyone, and the kids sat on the floor with them playing to the song the teacher was playing. I went to the front to help Tammy hold the guitar right, then returned to my seat. And then it was already story time, so everyone sat down by the board to watch and listen. She then did the goodbye song, and the kids each got to pick a sticker for their sticker books.

We left the classroom, and I took the kids to the bathroom before leaving the school. We stopped at the drugstore one more time, as the kids wanted some items, then walked to the subway that we rode for three stops to go eat at McDonald's, which we do once a week. It's the best one we know, and today they also had the animal figurines, in fact, new ones in the series, so all the kids were happy. We were enjoying our meal, then walked back to the subway to ride it home.

We got home just at the right time, at 1:15, which is nap time, and so I put them straight to bed. By 1:40 I was able to leave them, before Tammy was asleep, and ended up working for a while instead of sleeping. By the time I was ready to lie down myself just before 2:30, Sammy already woke up which then woke Emmy up who joined me in bed for a few minutes. It always amazes me how Tammy can sleep no matter what is going on around her. When I saw that it was after 3 pm, I opened the curtains and turned the ocean waves off, so she'd wake up, which she did. By 4 pm they were all downstairs to play, while I sat down by the computer to work without having had a nap. And I could really feel it; I was very tired for the next few hours, but powered on. I went downstairs a few times because of crying, but was able to work until just before 6 pm, when I got too tired to go on. I lay down for a few minutes, and then the kids came running to me, so that I had no choice but to get up and give them what they want. Sammy wanted to be with me and was ready to go to the kitchen, but I kept telling him it was not time yet, while having fun with him. Finally we did go to the kitchen, where I started making their dinner and taking the food that was ready to Tammy and Emmy at the table one after another, while giving it to Sammy who was sitting on the floor next to me. Then they all went into the bathtub, where they finished eating, before we got them out and ready for bed. It was still early, so I let them watch an episode of Bibleman before sitting down with them to read some Bible stories. Then I brushed their teeth, prayed for them and flew them into bed. I sat down by them and stayed until about 8:30 pm. Then Randy took my place, and I got myself something to eat. However, I was still sitting at my desk and working, trying to make progress on scanning my teaching books for our time in the  US. At some point I was so tired that I was just done, and I moved into a more comfortable position, starting to work on today's pictures. Now it's 1:30 am and time to go to bed.