11 months 29 days

I set my alarm this morning, so I'd have enough time to get some "real" food for the kids ready for lunch time at the table, but did not hear it. I only woke up when Randy walked into my room after 12 pm. So I hopped out of bed and quickly peeled a potato, cut it, and microwaved it, to give to them to try. Thankfully the baby food was already warm. Then we put them all into their chairs for their first meal of the day.

Somebody recently said it's easier to feed them in their chairs, but it's not. They have their hands free, and Tammy keeps trying to stand up, while Emmy does not want to be in it at all and leans so far back that it looks like he'll fall out of it. All three meals I had to take Emmy out of the chair and hold him in my arm, while constantly pulling Tammy's legs down, and still putting the spoon into both their mouths. Sammy doesn't like the chair much either, and Randy finally fed him in his arm for the last meal.

After I was done cooking and eating at lunch time, I joined the little ones in their play area, so Randy could get some work done. One of the greatest game for them is to pull off the shelf what I put on the shelf. There are always so many toys lying around, that I just start putting them all on the top shelf, and as soon as I do that, especially Emmy pulls them out. I kept doing it anyway, and Emmy had fun pulling it back off. Seems like a pointless exercise, but the day will come when they will be the ones putting the toys on the shelf at the end of the day.

This morning they got up later (I feed them well at night now), and so their nap times shifted today and they weren't getting tired in the afternoon for a very long time. One other favorite game of theirs is "grab Mommy's phone", so Mommy keeps putting it out of reach, or at least trying to. When I mentioned it to Randy, he pulled two phones out of the toy box to give to them. Now they have their own phones! (But they still want mine.)

It was already pretty late in the day when they finally got tired, but I still put Sammy into his bed, while the other two fell asleep with me. Even if I succeed in getting up without waking them, they always wake up soon after I'm gone. As it was meal time, I took them upstairs to the table for their last meal of the day. Tammy tends to not eat much for dinner, which was the case, and Emmy was so tired, I could not put him in the chair at all. They both ended up pretty dirty, so I put them into the bathtub and turned the water on. They both freaked out! I guess I had the water pressure too high, and the noise scared them. Like the drill yesterday had. So I decreased it and let the water flow in slowly. They were still not happy, because they were so tired. I'd get one to be happy, but then the other would cry and so the first one had to cry as well. So they didn't stay in the water for long, but landed together on the changing table for a fresh diaper, before I took them to their beds.

They were both tired, but that didn't mean they were happy to be in bed. I turned the music on, stroked their heads, and I didn't really take that long for them to fall asleep.

BUT Sammy is the one who kept us busy for hours tonight, as he simply did not want to sleep. He used to be the easy one, but since he started sleeping in a big bed like his siblings, it's been hard. He can now turn onto his back, which he didn't have space for before, but he is not able to turn back yet and can only sleep on his belly. He was also the one sleeping the longest late in the afternoon, even though Randy woke him up for dinner when I took the others upstairs. So Sammy was wide awake - for the next 3 hours. I tried everything to get him to be happy and sleep - milk, dental cream, fresh diaper, and turning him onto his belly dozens and dozens of times. Randy also tried his best, and did not succeed either. It was somewhere around 8:45 before he FINALLY fell asleep after I turned him over one last time.

Emmy woke up at 10 needing food, and then refusing to go to sleep until I gave him a new diaper. His crying woke up Tammy who also needed milk, as she had eaten little for dinner, and she fell back asleep easily.

Randy has been working hard. Please pray for him. He doesn't get to have long naps with babies sleeping on him at night any more. He spends all morning taking care of them, and then works the rest of the day. Today he mounted the TV wall shelves to each other and the wall, and has been putting the last few shelves together. Our deadline is their birthday on Tuesday, and there is still a lot I'd like to get done by then! And there's a lot I'd still like to get done tonight; it's only midnight, and I've not been able to go to bed before 4 am in a while.