31 months 27 days

Day 969. Last night I went to bed at 12:45 am. Tammy joined us in bed at some point. At 7 am I woke up, when Emmy came and also joined us. Soon he had succeeded in waking his sister up, and together they got up and left to play. Then Sammy also woke up and joined us in bed. At 8 am we all got up. Emmy and Tammy had played boat in the bathtub and filled it up with toys. I made breakfast, and we sat down to eat. I now put the food they don't eat all together on one plate and that's what their mid-morning snack is.

I cleaned them up and dressed them. While I was putting Tammy's dress on, Emmy had put on his stockings all by himself. I was really impressed. Of course Tammy then wanted to put her stockings on by herself and she also succeeded. It just takes longer.

We went downstairs, where we read a Bible story together. Sammy was playing with his favorite drum set. Then I went upstairs to work. I cleaned up, then turned my computer on. At 11 am Sonja arrived and Randy left for the grocery store, a while later I went to the kitchen to start cooking. At noon Randy returned, and the others came upstairs. We all sat down at the table to eat. Emmy couldn't get enough meat (pork) but cares nothing for dumplings or sauerkraut. Tammy really likes sauerkraut, and likes meat, but not dumplings. Sammy likes it all, but dumplings the most. They all had pudding, then we cleaned them up and dressed them. Sonja went downstairs, while the boys went to bed. It was already 12:55 pm. I sat down by the boys, and it was another one of those days, when they just would not fall asleep. It's so draining to be so tired yourself and have to work so hard to try to get them to sleep. I was exhausted. By 1:30 Emmy was finally falling asleep. Sammy's behavior was very unusual today, as he's usually the first one asleep. Today it took me until 1:45 to get him to sleep, which is 50 minutes! Tammy then came upstairs and went to bed. Thankfully she was asleep within 10 minutes, by 2 pm.

I finally sat down by my computer, extremely tired and exhausted. I still started working. At 2:15 Emmy already walked into the room, after 45 minutes of sleep. I picked him up and lay down with him. Tiredness just overwhelmed me, but after 5 minutes he got up and went to Randy, who took him downstairs to Sonja. I was at the point where the only thing I could do was to close my eyes. I fell asleep.

I woke up, when Randy got Sammy ten minutes later to get him ready to go to physiotherapy, and his crying kept me up. Then I fell asleep again. At 3 pm Tammy came running into my room crying. I comforted her, lay down with her, but she was ready to go downstairs. She'd only slept an hour. Apparently the doorbell woke up her up, as Emmy also came to the staircase  talking about a package. I had not heard a bell and had to get the packages from our neighbor later. I took Tammy downstairs, together with their snack, and went back upstairs to work. It took me a while to be able to function again. Then I decided to take their shoes downstairs, as it was a warm and sunny day for once and they had already wanted to go outside yesterday. They were excited to get to go outside. I put their helmets on and then got the light jackets, as it was a little chilly in the shade. They had lots of fun running their cars with Sonja and stayed outside for a long time. Randy returned with Sammy at 4:30, and they also went downstairs and outside. I worked until 5:20 and then started making their dinner. At 5:50 I went downstairs to tidy up with them, but there was not much left to do. Still, both Emmy and Tammy helped taking care of the rest and each received a coin for their piggy bank. Then we went upstairs to eat.

Sonja said her goodbyes, and we sat down at the table to eat. They all ate some, then I combined the rest in bowls that I took to the bathtub. They went potty, and Emmy has gotten pretty good at pooping in the potty, doing so frequently. Tammy peed into the potty after the bathtub.  They both got a gummybear as a reward. They all had fun in the water and ate nearly all their food. Then they come out one after another, and we got them ready for bed. By 7:10 pm they were all in bed.

I sat down by them, and Tammy lay down on my chest. Sammy was fussing again, and I figured he wanted me to hold him as I'd done the past few days. Tammy was so kind to get up, but would not go to bed. I picked up Sammy and rocked him, but not for long, with Tammy waiting to return, and Sammy still being rather awake and constantly lifting his head up. Tammy returned to my chest, Emmy joined her, then went back to his bed, and it took a while before Tammy agreed to go to bed. They were still giving me  hard time, and I'd had enough. I walked to our bedroom, and they both came running and crying. I told them I'd sit down by them if they lie down in their beds, and so I did. Sammy and Emmy fell asleep, Tammy needed longer again. By 8 pm I was able to walk away. I got myself something to eat, went downstairs to eat, and then went back to work. I'm still working on catching up on my workload.