5 years 8 months 17 days

Day 2086. I was looking forward to sleeping in yesterday, a Sunday, but the kids were very loud and went downstairs way too late. Eventually I got up and went to the kitchen to make lunch. Then we put the second new shelf in its place, and I started putting stuff up, tidying up the house. After lunch, I wanted to get to work getting some much-needed office work done that I should have long completed, but first I did some more tidying up which felt good. Then the kids went downstairs, while I sat down at the computer for the office work.

At 5 pm Randy let me know that the kids were ready to go upstairs, so I went downstairs for piano practice. After we were done, I was going to go back upstairs, but Tammy wanted me to watch her play she was going to do with the puppets so I stayed. Then Emmy also wanted to do a play, and Sammy simply joined in. It was great. Tammy then wanted to show me what she can do on our swing that is like an aerial fabric where you can do lots of stuff. I was very impressed with what she had taught herself. She asked me to film her, then they turned music on, and I did another video of her. Of course Emmy wanted me to film him as well, but he was not quite as elegant as his sister.

After they were done, we went upstairs where I started making their dinner which was the beginning of our evening routine.

Last night I went to bed too late, and then I couldn't sleep. And so I was even more tired than usual this morning. I went back to sleep after Randy had left with the kids to take them to their kindergartens, but I had set my alarm for just before 9 am as the cleaning lady was coming at 9 am. I let her in and went back to bed.

When I got up just before 11 am, Randy was back home after having picked up his new glasses. He then went to the postoffice to pick up a package, then left to go get Sammy. Unfortunately the cleaning lady left before Sammy returned home, as he was a few minutes late. But they ran into each other on the street. She always brings the kids surprise eggs.

I had eaten before Sammy came home and warmed up leftovers for Randy who ate before leaving to get Tammy and Emmy. That meant he left later than usual. Sammy wanted to watch kids's song videos with the projector. I told him that we had a visitor arriving any time, and he was all excited about it. An acquaintance from another part of Austria had announced herself and asked when she could come to help. As we never get any help, that was a welcome change. And I actually really needed help today, so she came today.

She arrived at about 1:30 pm and introduced herself to Sammy. Then the three of us went downstairs. I had a student at 2:30 pm and decided to try to teach downstairs again which I hadn't done in a long time. My office is actually downstairs but the internet just wasn't good enough. Today we moved a shelf that was blocking the repeated, and the internet was just perfect. The only issue was the kids being loud in the background.

Our visitor was playing with Sammy, while I was right there in my office working and listening to them. At 2:30 pm I started teaching. Randy and the other kids returned home while I was teaching, and the kids immediately started playing with our visitor as well. When I was done teaching at 3:20 pm, I asked Tammy and Emmy to come to me for piano practice. Once they were done, there was not much time left before they left the house with Randy to go to their programming class.

And a few minutes later I had my next student, at 4 pm. I was glad I didn't have to teach her at the coffee shop as originally planned, as she was a maths student and the table at the coffee shop would have been to small for the drawing board attached to the computer. I taught until 4:50, then I joined Sammy and our visitor for a few minutes. I went upstairs to make a sandwich for Sammy for dinner and wanted to take it downstairs to him, but he wanted to come upstairs and watch song videos on the big screen. And so we all went upstairs, where our visitor sat down next to Sammy at the table and got to talk to me some more. At 5:30 pm she left for the day, but we might see her again in the next few days. After she had left, Sammy kept saying how much he liked her. He was playing with the door, while I was cutting their fruit.

Randy and the other kids returned home just before 7 pm. They then also sat down to eat their fruit. After a while, they went into the bathtub, then I still read them a story, but time was short as I still had a student. I quickly prayed for them, and off they went to bed while I sat down by my computer. I then taught until 9 pm, then I went to the kitchen to make myself some soup. After I had finished eating, I started working on the pictures and then the report. Now it's 1 am, and I hope to make it to bed soon.