15 months 12 days

Last night I told you how tough it was with Tammy. Tonight she's been fine, once she finally fell asleep, praise God. She and Sammy are breathing so much more easily now, they're both still coughing a little, Sammy more than her, and Tammy's eyes are not as ready as they were yesterday. She again skipped lunch and dinner. They're getting there!

It was a really short night for me. I went to bed at 3, but then still thought about this and that message I needed to write, and things to look up, so it was after 4 before I actually went to sleep, and as I didn't get to sleep as much during the day as usual, I felt the tiredness all day, more than usual.

We fed them breakfast at 9:25 today, and put them down for their morning nap after; it was 9:45 am. Tammy fell asleep at 10 am, being her usual self of raising her head, talking, and fighting it, and slept for 45 minutes. At 10:30 the last Amazon boxes with stuff for Mali were delivered, and the door bell always wakes Emmy up. His crying then woke Sammy up. When Tammy woke up a few minutes later at 10:45, everyone went downstairs to play. I didn't go back to bed immediately, as there a few things I needed to get done. However, I was so tired that I finally ended up in bed, setting my timer for half an hour, which is all the time I could afford to sleep. After my rude awakening, I heard the door bell. It was Sonja who had come for her very last day with us. I had asked her to stop at the pharmacy on the way to bring us some cough medicine and eye drops for Tammy's pink eye. We were all downstairs to give it to them. I had to pull the cough syrop out with a syringe, and it was really easy to put it into Sammy's mouth. The opposite was true for Tammy. I guess they've had enough of syringes with all the shots they've recently had! I could get it barely into her mouth, and half of it spilled. Then the eye drops. Daddy had to hold her head and arms tight, while I pried her eye open one after another to drop it in. We repeated all that later in the day. Not easy!

Then we went upstairs to eat; it was 12:15. Sonja fed Emmy, while I fed Tammy. Emmy ate great, Tammy refused to. I had put two quick pizzas into the oven for the three of us (yes, my diet is on hold), and distributed it on our plates. Sonja went downstairs with the babies, and her plate, while we quickly ate upstairs and got ready to leave. Tammy has REALLY been clinging to me, even more than usual. She even cries when her Daddy is right there if she sees me walk away! She was creaming, when I left, and Sammy was also screaming. He ALWAYS wants to be with one of us. Tammy soon stopped screaming, but Sammy didn't. The whole time we were quickly eating, he was screaming. When we left, he was still screaming. Poor baby.

We left just after 1 pm, and returned before it was even 2 pm, so we weren't even gone for an hour. But Sammy had screamed most of that hour. Poor baby! We only had one subway to take for a few stops, and were already at our destination to get our PCR test for our trip done. This way, should France be picky, it's less than three days old, and for Mali it will be 3 days, and they require one not older than 7 day. I had found a place where the results were emailed to you within 3 hours, while most other places promised 24-48 hours. I was surprised, also that it didn't cost more than the other places, and it was easiest to reach of them all.

We immediately saw it when we got there; it's a shame I forgot to take a picture. We walked into the container, and there was a single guy sitting at a desk, and the whole big place was empty. No other people. It was immediately our turn, even though we were a little early. I had always seen them swab the nose, but he swabbed the back of our mouths. He said the samples were immediately sent to the lab, and the results emailed to us within 3 hours. We had them 2.5 hours later; mine is below, and Randy's looks the same. Another hurdle taken so we can fly to Mali! We were out of there within a few minutes, took the subway back home, and stopped at the pharmacy near our home to pick up the prescription from the pediatrician. I was eager to get back home and relieve Sonja.

When we walked in, she was just putting the boys to bed, just a little earlier than I would have, but with Sammy screaming, sometimes he's just tired and needs to sleep. Emmy was also screaming, being put into bed.

The first thing I did was to give them some love and hugs, all three of them, two at the time, one after another... I wished I could hold them all three at once. All three of them calmed down - until I set them down. Since Sammy had been screaming for an hour, I held him a while, Randy held another one. He decided to give them milk to calm them down and help them sleep, so he put Emmy to bed with a bottle, and fed Sammy who cannot hold the bottle by himself. I lay down with Tammy, but then decided to feed her her afternoon meal, as she had skipped lunch. I held her in my arm standing up, while she ate the whole jar. The boys went to bed at 2:20, and I lay down with Tammy at 2:40, and she fell asleep only 5 minutes later. Even though I was really tired, I ended up doing stuff on my phone instead of sleeping; maybe not smart.

Emmy slept over an hour and woke up first, Sammy just minutes later, and Randy and Sonja were feeding them. Normally I don't let them sleeper later than 4 pm so they can fall asleep at bedtime, but today I let Tammy sleep, and she ended up sleeping 90 minutes, until 4:15. Then we went downstairs to join the others and played together.

Everyone was happy. Sammy was his joyful self again, pulled the house onto his back as if he was a snail. Emmy loves his balls, and Tammy was also happy. We played for a while, and at 5 pm I left them (now not happy) to go upstairs and make their dinner. We fed them half an hour later. Again Tammy would not eat anything after one bite. And I was amazed at how Sonja got Emmy to eat; she was a lot more successful than I had been yesterday.

Since Tammy was not eating, she went into the bathtub first and I played with her. There was more foam as usual in the water, as the bottle was now empty, and Tammy was curiously checking out that foam. When Emmy joined her a little while later, and I put a big heap of foam in front of him, he actually got scared! But not for long. All three enjoyed the water, as always, but Tammy wanted out after a while, so she came out before Emmy today. And she did not appreciate it at all when I put nose drops into her nostrils!

After I had put them all to bed, I walked away, and Tammy did her screaming thing. After a while, when her screaming got more intense, I returned. In the end, they all had milk, and Tammy also got dental cream. She was still whining, even when I was there, and I ended up walking away and listening to her cry for a while, until she fell asleep without me coming back. Finally! It was already going on 8 pm.

Cooking, eating, and Randy started working on the suitcases, as we had everything together that needed to be packed. I'm amazed he was able to pack it all! Now it's just our personal suitcase left that our few clothes and stuff go in (we have our clothes in Mali), as well as all the baby clothes we are taking. All that will have to be finished tomorrow, as we leave the day after tomorrow.

While Randy was doing that, I was doing office work, and now it's 1:30 am, and I still need to get the French version of the newsletter done and sent out, which will still take a while. Thank you for praying for our preparations, and our trip!

Today Tammy weighed 9.8 kilos (+0 since last Monday), Emmy 9.2 (+400 grams) and Sammy 6.8 (-600).