13 months 27 days

I've been reducing the amount of milk I give them at night, and it's been going well. But I've been going to bed too late, and did so last night as well, paying a price all day long. I was so extremely tired I had a bad headache in the afternoon. I can't go on functioning on 5 hours of sleep per night, but during the day I cannot get anything done, so I have to do it at night.

It was hard as always to crawl out of bed just before 9 am to make their food and then start feeding them. Just after we started feeding them, our friend Anna arrived with her cleaning lady to clean our apartment, which was very much needed. They stayed while we went to the swimming pool, and finished not long after we returned.

We left the house at 9:45 and took the two subways to the pool, which takes us 45 minutes. We met my Mom there, went inside, put the plastic on the wheels of the stroller, and went to the changing room. After we had taken our clothes off, we rolled the strollers to the pool where we took the babies' clothes off and put their swim suits on. Then we went into the pool and enjoyed the half hour class. Randy had Sammy, I started with Tammy, and Grandma with Emmy. However, since none of them gets a morning nap, as they don't sleep in the strollers on the way there, especially Emmy is always tired and cranky and wants to be with me, not Grandma, so we switch soon after the class starts. Especially as we usually start with swimming on their back, and they don't like that (except for Sammy). I was surprised when he didn't mind swimming on the back with me.

And we did something new today. They have been diving for a while. Often we sit them on the edge of the pool and then pull them in and under, but today we sat them on the edge of the pool and they jumped in themselves. And we actually did it many times. Emmy seemed to enjoy it!

It's always sad when the class is over so fast, and today when we paid at the checkout, the lady pointed out that we paid for 3 hours and were leaving after 90 minutes. And it's really expensive too. But they're tired, it's lunch time, and Grandma needs to go home too.

Before we left the changing rooms, there was the cutest interaction between Grandma and Emmy. Grandma was repeating the sounds that Emmy was making, and he thought it was absolutely hilarious (video uploaded).

We started our long trip home, and as expected, Emmy fell asleep first, and then Tammy, and Sammy didn't. Mommy couldn't keep her eyes open either. Just as we walked up to our building, Sonja arrived as well. A God-sent! I put their food into the warmers, and then we got them out of the strollers one after another, and then fed them. Then Sammy went straight to bed, as he hadn't slept all day, and he slept for about an hour. And that's all the sleep he had during the day today!

Emmy and Tammy went downstairs with Sonja, while Randy cooked omelets for us. They were tired too, especially Emmy, even though they had slept in the strollers, and so I tried to lie down with Emmy (I needed a nap too!), but he wasn't quite ready to sleep, so I took him back downstairs.

A little while later I ate my omelet, while Emmy was still cranky, so after I was done, I tried it again, but again he wasn't ready, and so he went back downstairs. I needed my nap!

Now Tammy was tired too, and so I lay down with her, and she fell sleep. Sonja and Randy were feeding the boys, while we were sleeping, and I fed Tammy when she woke up. Actually, Randy woke us up as it was about 4 pm, and the rule is "no sleeping after 4".

I had actually been awake much of the time as Sammy was so tired and crying a lot. At 3 pm the Mobile Therapy Support person had arrived to work with him, and he was not happy. Randy was upstairs working, and he just wanted one of us. Randy did go downstairs a few times. I went downstairs at 4 pm, after having fed Tammy, and held Sammy. Actually, all three wanted to be close to me!

At 4:30 the therapist left, and I went upstairs to get their dinner ready. Somehow I forgot it was Thursday when everything is later, and dinner should have been later too, but it was okay.

Randy started feeding Sammy first, who was so tired, while I was still finishing all the preparations for bed time. That way he had a big head start. I had only just started feeding Emmy, when Sammy was done, and so Randy took my place with Emmy - feeding him this kind of food for the very first time - while I took Sammy to the bathtub to get him cleaned up again, and then put him to bed.

Interestingly, Tammy and Emmy both did NOT want to be in the bathtub tonight. I guess it was too much water for one day, having gone swimming in the morning! So we just washed the food off, and I put Tammy down first (usually it's Emmy), and then Emmy. Tammy had an easier time than usual falling asleep, but not Emmy. I was there a long time, and in the end gave him some milk, which did the trick and he fell asleep.

I really hope I make it to bed earlier tonight, given how tired I've been, but it's already approaching 2 am and I'm still doing this.