15 months 11 days

It's after 1 am, and Tammy has been crying. I've already stroked her head and sat by her, and I have rocked her to sleep and put her to bed, but she was only quiet for a few minutes. She cannot sleep the whole night on me, sick or not! She didn't do this last night. At this point I'm just praying she falls back asleep by herself. Thankfully it doesn't bother her brothers, though Emmy did wake up one time.

Last night I was actually amazed that it was nearly 3 am and nobody had wanted milk. I was wondering whether I should go to bed without feeding them or not, but then I heard one of them, and in the end all three had had milk. Tammy had not eaten dinner, and was SO HUNGRY, she grabbed that bottle and would not even let me touch it until the whole bottle was empty. Tonight she didn't eat dinner either, but she's had milk, and she's definitely not sleeping tight like last night. Both Sammy and Tammy still had a fever last night, but thank God, today they were fever-free. They still have a stuffy and runny nose and are coughing a little, but Tammy was her joyful self again today. She did have red eyes today, probably pink eye, which can come when battling a virus like this.

Today we fed them at their new time (half an hour later) of 9:30 am, then put them to bed. The boys fell asleep, and Tammy went to bed with me. Yesterday she just lay down and slept; today she was her typical self again, raising her head up, talking, trying not to fall asleep.She finally fell asleep after half an hour, and slept from 10:20 to 11:30. Then she went downstairs to join the boys.

I went back to bed, and got back up to feed them lunch, which we did at 12:45. Tammy refused to eat anything but a spoonful or two. Then everyone went downstairs, while I cooked for Randy and myself. While we were eating downstairs, I could tell they were getting tired, especially Sammy. Since I was not done eating, I just put Sammy to bed at 2:10, and he slept longer than he's ever had since he was a little baby, for an hour and a half. I let Emmy still play with his sister, and finished my food as fast as possible, then took them upstairs for their nap time. It was 2:30 pm. Emmy fell asleep quickly, while it took Tammy half an hour to fall asleep on me (3 pm), and she woke up 50 minutes later, which was earlier than expected. Randy had just started feeding the boys their afternoon meal, as they had woken up just minutes earlier. So we joined them, and I fed Tammy and Emmy, as usual. This time the girl ate everything.

Then we all went downstairs to play together. Sammy was happily playing and crawling, Emmy had fun walking around and trying to get out and playing ball, and Tammy enjoyed her rocking giraffe. At 5 pm I left them to go make their dinner. Half an hour later they all came up to eat. And this time, I could not get Tammy to eat anything at all. Emmy ate all of his bananas as well as hers, but only a few pieces of bread and no soup. It's time for a change, which will come naturally in Mali! Both of them threw food on the ground on purpose, after I said not to. Emmy knows exactly what he's doing. He holds the food in his hand, over to the side, and looks at me smiling in expecting, with this smile that shows he knows exactly that he's disobeying, and then drops it. I tell him not to do it, and he does it anyway, then I hold his hand tight so he can't use it, and he just uses his other hand and does the same there. But then he does not like not having ANY hand; except that sometimes he simply puts his mouth into the plate and acts like he doesn't care. I left him in his chair while cleaning up; that way it's done, he has to wait and watch, and I don't have to do it in the dark, when they are in bed.

Everyone went into the bathtub, and then to bed in the regular order. And everyone ended up getting milk, as I can't just feed one and not the others. After a while Sammy was okay, but Tammy gave me a really hard time, even when she first went to bed. It was already much later than usual, when she was still crying for me to be there, and I was getting worn out. FINALLY I was able to walk away, cook, and eat, and I knew I still had the newsletter to translate into German and send out, which I finished before starting my update. All the other stuff I have to do every night is done.

We have not done any more packing, as quite a bit more stuff is arriving from Amazon tomorrow, and all that needs to still make it into the suitcases. I already foresee getting an extra one! So tomorrow night we'll be really busy with packing. 3 more days until we leave! Thanks for praying for everyone to recover quickly and be in perfect health by Wednesday!

P.S. Tammy did stop crying while I was writing this, but now Sammy is calling my name...