Day 2341. Yesterday my third alarm went off at 9:15, an hour after Sammy had left for school. I got up and got ready to teach at 9:45 am. I taught until 11 am, then started my next student at 11:30 am. Before that, I put a lasagna into the oven for us to eat as I didn't have time to cook. I finished teaching at 12:30 am, then I ate. At 1 pm I left the house to go pick up Tammy and Emmy. Randy left right after me to pick up Sammy and take him to his weekly horse therapy. It was really cold but he loves it.
I picked up Tammy and Emmy at 1:50, which is when they come out of their school building, and we took two buses home. Once home, I had to sit down to teach right away. I taught until 3:30 pm, then I was supposed to have another student until 4:30 pm. However, there was a misunderstanding so that lesson did not happen. Instead I went downstairs to do piano practice with Tammy and Emmy. They are taking part in a piano playing competition in February, so they're focusing on practicing the 8 pieces they'll be playing by heart, and they play them really well already.
After piano practice, I went to the kitchen to make their sandwiches. Randy then left with Tammy and Emmy just before 5 pm to take them to their swim class that starts at 5:30 pm. Sammy and I stayed home and had a good time together. I cut up all the fruit for the children and set it on the table, and at 6:40 pm I started teaching - about 15 minutes before Randy and the kids returned. Once I was done at 7:30 pm, the kids started getting ready for bed. As I didn't have an evening student, we were able to take time reading Bible stories. We prayed together, then they went to bed, while I sat down to eat. After having eaten, I went back to work.
This morning I was glad to be able to sleep in longer. My third alarm went off at 10:15 am. I got up and got ready to leave the house which I did at 10:45 am. I took the subway downtown, then walked to my dentist's office. I got there perfectly on time for my 11:15 appointment but had to sit down in the waiting room for a few minutes. Then I went inside. My young lady doctor redid a filling that needed to be redone, and she's always very thorough and takes her time, drilling forever. By the time I left there, it was already 12:30 pm which was a little later than expected. About 20 minutes later I was home but I only had a few minutes at home.
Just after 1 pm I left the house again and took the two buses necessary to get to Tammy's and Emmy's school. It was the third day in a row for me to pick them up from school which is highly unusual. Thankfully all the buses came right away so that I got there in time for our appointment. It was time for their first teacher-parent-child meetings. I went inside and to the room where they were. They came right to me when they saw me and were released to go. Together we then went upstairs to their classroom for the meeting.
Their teacher was already there waiting for us. Emmy went first and sat down next to his teacher. She had two papers lying there with about 30 different points where they had to rate themselves how good they were at different things. Both Tammy and Emmy had marked the best possible smiley for most lines, but had a few where they had marked the smiley that was one step down. The teacher then went through each of the statements together with us and asked them why they had marked themselves down where they did. The teacher herself had them given the best scores for every single one of the lines - behavior, maths, reading, writing, sciences. I also got to look into some of their books, what they are doing, which was cool. Both Tammy and Emmy were pretty shy the whole time... completely different from the way I know them.
After we were done, we said our good-byes and walked to the bus stop. The bus was arriving so we had to run to catch it. Two stops later we got off to take the second bus. By 3 pm we were back home.
Randy had just come home with Sammy. He had picked him up and then gone to the shoe store to pick up his new special shoes. I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch yet so I made myself some soup and ate it. Then I made their sandwiches. Time was passing quickly, and so it was already time to leave. I packed up what we needed, then I left with Tammy and Emmy just before 4 pm. We walked to the train station and took the 4:05 pm train across the Danube. Normally we take the 4:20 pm train but that is one of the 50% of trains that are not running until the end of February. We did reading practice on the train, and then on the tram going to the school where they have their exercise class. We got there early, obviously. They were able to get changed without having to hurry, and once the class started at 4:45 pm they went inside with their bottle and sticker books.
I stayed in the locker room, on my phone, and soon got very tired but never closed my eyes. Before I knew it the kids already came to get changed again. They had received the fifth and biggest tennis sticker, completing the five sessions of tennis. Next they'll be doing athletics.
We were not rushed to make the train today as the train was not running so we had plenty of time until the next train. So we went to a bakery on the way to pick up bread for a third of the price then continued on to the train station. We still had 15 minutes until the train so we went to the subway platform where it's warmer until it was time to go catch the train. The train was 6 minutes later, so we did have to stand in the cold for a little bit.
By 6:40 we were home. Randy and Sammy arrived 2 minutes later. Sammy had had his weekly wheelchair class and today they had played basketball which he had enjoyed. I immediately went to the kitchen to cut up their fruit and made them some hot noodle soup. Then we went downstairs for piano practice. Back upstairs it was bathtub time. After that, we read some Bible stories as my evening student had canceled so that I did not have to watch the time. The kids were happy about it. On the downside, it was 8:30 pm by the time they were in bed. Then I was finally able to get myself something to eat. I ate, then went back to work.
