31 months 4 days

Day 946. Last night I went to bed at 1:35. Randy let the girl join us in bed at some point, and in the morning Emmy came as well. It was crowded, and I did not sleep well last night. In the morning we got up at 7:30.

I made breakfast, and we sat down to eat. Emmy was cranky today and wanted to sit on my lap and did not want to eat. Sammy also ate less than usual. We cleaned them up and dressed them and went downstairs, where we read a Bible story. Then I took my computer and went upstairs to work. At 11:30 I went to the kitchen to cook. Randy and the kids came upstairs at noon before it was quite ready. He took their clothes off, while I got the food on the plates. Especially Emmy was impatient to eat. They all ate well, especially Tammy who seems to have found her appetite again. They all had pudding, then I cleaned them up to not be green any more (spinach), and both Tammy and Emmy successfully went potty. We dressed them, and the boys went to bed, while Tammy went downstairs with Randy. It was 12:40.

Sammy was wide awake and was having fun. Who knows why. It took him a whole hour to fall asleep, which is so not like him. In fact, all three have not recovered from spring forward yet. Emmy was also giving me quite a hard time, and it took 45 minutes, until 1:25, for him to fall asleep. That's when Tammy came upstairs to go to bed, and it took her 35 minutes to fall asleep, which was 2 pm. I was still trying to catch up on office work, but time was sure short. At 2:25 Emmy walked into the room, and I picked him up and lay down with him. We both fell asleep. At 2:45 I needed to get up, and so Emmy was up as well by necessity. I got his pants to dress him, and then his siblings woke up as well. We dressed them all, got everything ready, and left the house on time just after 3:15 pm.

When I was young, before I knew the Lord, I had two passions in life - astronomy and dancing. I was really excited, when I found a regular dancing school that offered classes for children, and it was at a good distance. Today they had the opportunity to join the class for free to check it out, so that's what we were going to do. We took the subway, then another line for just one stop and took the elevator up to the street level, where Sonja was already waiting for us. We hadn't seen her in about three weeks, and Emmy had already been asking to see her more and more insistently. I expected them to react with a lot more exuberance, when they saw her again than they did. I was just glad that she had taken this time to be with us at the dance class today, when she was not gonna come back to help us until next week. Together we walked to the dancing school, taking advantage of the time to catch up a little. As we were getting closer, we could already see a good number of children walking the same direction.

We entered the building, and the first thing we saw was a big sign saying you had to be either vaccinated or recovered of Covid to be there. We have four more months of being "recovered". We showed proof, I filled out a paper, we parked our strollers, and walked up the staircase to where the ballrooms were. There was a room there, where we could take off our shoes, then we walked into the small ballroom. There was a mirror on one wall that the teacher told us to not touch, and we had to remind both Emmy and Tammy at one point. The teacher was a young lady. There were about 4 or 5 other children there, including a smaller sibling that was playing to the side. The class lasted for 50 minutes and was packed from beginning to end. No slow welcome and good-bye songs, one for each child with their name in it. Tammy participated from the beginning, trying to do the actions and movements. Emmy did very little, just looking instead, and he constantly wanted me to hold him. Sammy was having a great time, and all three of us adults had him at different times. It was definitely helpful having a third adult with us.

Some of the songs we did they knew, and two of them that they like they had not done in a long time, as they were not done by the other teachers, so they really enjoyed that. At one point the teacher got these little, round carpets out, one for each person, and then handed out fabric to everyone. They had to make a ball out of it, then open their hand and let it come out like a blooming flower. Then they had to put it on their little carpet, before she turned the music on and everyone walked around as butterflies, and then as bees. I had Emmy on my shoulders for quite some time, as he's getting to heavy for my arms. At the very end she did a good-bye song that they know well, and then the class was over. You can tell it's in a dancing school and that you pay more, but I believe it's worth it, and we're going to continue with it. We put their shoes back on, walked downstairs and out of the building with the signup forms. The kids had really enjoyed it, Tammy most of all. All together we walked back to the subway, which took some time and gave us more opportunity to talk with Sonja. Then we had to say good-bye again, much to Emmy's dismay. We took the elevator to the subway, rode one stop, then took another subway. At this time of day it was really full, and so they stayed in their stroller. Emmy and Tammy wanted to watch Peppa Pig, and so I let them until we got off the train. We walked the rest of the way home, getting there at 5:40 pm.

We usually eat dinner at 6 pm, and so we stayed upstairs. Emmy was the first to pull up a chair to the kitchen counter, while I had started making their dinner. Tammy followed suit, and they were both eating what I put on their plates. At one point I asked what was missing, and Tammy immediately told me which two fruit was not on their plates yet. Wow! Once it was all done, we sat down at the table to eat. However, they had already done most of their eating in the kitchen, and there was no soup tonight. That is except for Sammy, who was obviously hungry as he was eating, what I gave him. The other two soon got up, and then went to the bathtub. They were all having lots of fun in the bathtub, as always, but tonight even more. Tammy had the shower head in her hand and I kept turning the water out of it on and off, making her laugh and giggle, as well as her brothers. I so enjoyed watching them! But then they spotted poop in the water, and that was the end of the water games. All three came out right away. They hadn't even finished eating yet. They ate a little more out of the water, including some cake, then we brushed their teeth, and by 7:15 pm they were all in bed. I sat down by them, and we talked. Then Tammy returned to her bed from my chest. I encouraged them to sleep and was extremely tired myself. So much so that I felt like I had to walk away after a while of them STILL talking and doing other stuff besides sleeping. I went to our bedroom, lying down in the dark, while Randy took my place. However, they were crying for me, and so I returned after a few minutes. It was after 8 pm, when I left for good; only Tammy was not completely asleep by then and still called my name for a while. I was again in our dark bedroom, resting, as I was so exhausted. At 9 pm I got up to get myself something to eat, turned my computer on, and worked again after having eaten. One time I heard Emmy waking up, and I quickly went to comfort him before he could get up. Just in time! But it wasn't long that he actually got up, crying for me, and I picked him up, held him a little and then put him back into bed. I tried to leave after a few minutes, with more or less success. It wasn't long before he was up again, crying for me, and he would not accept Daddy holding him. I once again held him for a while, put him into bed, and he protested, when I tried to walk away. I agreed to work in the chair next to his bed and got my computer to do so. He was still pretty restless in his bed next to me for a while, but comforted by my presence. After having stayed there for quite some time, I moved to the dining room table just a few more steps away which made it easier to work on the computer. I'm so extremely tired tonight, I just have to go to bed at a more reasonable time.