Day 1055. It was a typical morning with Emmy being up early, but then I heard a loud thump and he started crying. I jumped out of bed and saw Tammy in Sammy's bed and Emmy on the floor. He had tried to climb into Sammy's bed and had fallen. I picked him up and lay down with him to comfort him. When we then got up for good, it was once again pretty late, already going on 9 am. I was shocked to see how late it was.
After breakfast I wasn't gonna go downstairs with them given the time, but especially Emmy was cranky, and so I went after all, and we read a Bible story together. They wanted to draw, and so I gave them paper and crayons, and then I left to go work.
I only had just over an hour left, which wasn't much. At 11:15 I went to the kitchen to start making a new dish. Just before noon they came upstairs and went on the balcony to blow bubbles, then I called them inside to eat. The food was still hot, and so the kids said they didn't like it. Once it had cooled off some, they did like it after all. Tammy ate well once Daddy started feeding her. She likes being fed. Daddy then helped Emmy eat some more so he'd also get some icecream. Sammy hadn't eaten much either, and so I did not give him icecream. But then both Tammy and Emmy interceded for him, and so I gave him icecream as well.
After cleaning them up and dressing them, they went straight to bed, as we had to leave for church at 3 pm already. Tammy was giving me a hard time again before finally falling asleep. Then I returned to my computer to work. I was really tired and did close my eyes for about 10 minutes, which was not enough. At 2:30 I got up and turned the ocean waves off. I also opened the curtains, and all that was enough for them to wake up. We started dressing them and getting ready to leave at 3 pm.
We took both strollers and walked to the train station; Emmy wanted to walk, and soon Tammy also got out of the stroller to walk. We took the train and then the subway and then walked through the mall to get to church. On the way we walked by the bumper cars, and the kids ran to get in them. I pushed them around and turned them a little bit, then we walked on to church.
We got there before the service started and went to the front on the side, where the drum set was. Sammy wanted to get as close as possible to it. Unfortunately they did not have a drummer today. Sammy got cranky after a while and wanted to be with Daddy, who then walked around with him in the back. Emmy was with me part of the time, while Tammy kept moving around. After less than half an hour we left to go to the baby room, when I heard Sammy crying pretty hard in the back.
There were already two kids in the room, which is unusual. The 4-year-old is usually in the kids's program, but there wasn't one today. His Mom put a Christian movie for their age on, and the two children and ours watched it together. Then they went back to playing. Randy took care of Sammy for most of the time, while I had him later.
We had the service on the TV screen and were surprised, when it already ended just after 6:30 pm. And so we left the room to return to the sanctuary. We stayed outside in the café, talking to a few people, while the kids were having fun with some people. After a while we left.
We walked through the mall again and walked by a hall with game machines. Emmy ran off and inside. I tightened my grip on Tammy's hand, while I was pushing the stroller with Sammy with my other. Randy went after Emmy. For a moment I loosened my grip, and Tammy ran off as well to go after her brother. I left Sammy there by himself to go after her. We put them into the double stroller, against their will, and I told them we were not going to McDonald's because of their behavior. They cried most of the way to McDonald's, or at least whined and pleaded with me to go there after all. When we reached McDonald's, I started a serious talk with them. I asked them whether they had behaved well or misbehaved. At first they both said they had been good children, then Emmy admitted that he had misbehaved. I tried to get Tammy to admit it, but she never did. I'd already had the "grace talk" with them once today (getting what you don't deserve), and tried to have it again. But they were not really listening and I was not getting anywhere, and then a McDonald's walked up to us and gave Emmy a balloon. Then Tammy was crying because she wanted one too, but it had been the last one they had. The employee left to blow up two more for her and Sammy, while we sat down at a table. They were happy.
I ordered the food and took it to the table, and we all had a good time. Then we walked to the subway that took us to the train and reached the train station just a few minutes before our train came. It was really full, but the kids continued watching the video they had started while waiting for the train. When I stopped it because we were approaching our stop, they were crying as usual. We got off and walked home, where we arrived around 7:15 pm.
Since it was still rather early, they all went into the bathtub. Some time around 8 pm they were all in bed. I sat down by them and stayed for a while, Tammy being the last one to fall asleep. She was not all the way asleep, when I left their side around 8:30, but she was okay with it. I went to my computer and back to work and hope to get to bed just a little bit earlier than usual.
