It's nearly 2 am, and I have not finished processing the over 100 pictures of today. However, I can barely keep my eyes open, so I've decided to push myself to write about today, and do the pictures tomorrow. We spent all evening putting the Christmas tree up, then I was cooking tomorrow's lunch after midnight. I'll be adding pictures to this post tomorrow, and of course, even more pictures are in the photo album.
For the third day in a row they added 15 minutes to their sleep in the morning, getting up at 6:45 today. Tammy had slept through the night again, and the boys had milk once, waking each other up. Tonight Emmy woke up after 11 pm and woke both his siblings up, so all three got milk.
I set my alarm, and fed them breakfast at 9 am, then they went to bed at 9:30 for their morning nap. I have come to the conclusion that it simply will not work for them to take their nap at the same time. At several occasions today, Emmy was just walking around in bed keeping his siblings up. In the morning, Sammy was crying, while Emmy was walking around. Randy held Sammy for a little bit, and he actually fell asleep, so he put him down. Tammy slept over an hour on me, from 9:55 until 11:10.
At 12:10 we fed them lunch; we still had leftover pasta from yesterday. I had finally cleared the dining room table., though some Christmas stuff was waiting to be put up.
Then it was play time. We've had a lot of kids over today to play with them. Esther (3) just wants to be at our house all day long, enjoying the toys especially. She got really into them today, making towers and stuff with Duplos. And she's very possessive and was upset, when Tammy took a piece off her tower. She also kept trying to lift her up; it's not unusual for a 3-year-old to carry a newborn sibling on their back.
And today Jonathan was over and just had an instant mutual connection with Emmy. It was remarkable and astounded everyone, especially his Mom Fanta. Fanta told me that he won't even hold his little 4-month-old brother, saying that's for women to do. And there he was, playing with Emmy, and even taking his clothes off and putting him into his chair to eat! Men don't do that! We're changing culture, and Jonathan needs changing big time anyway.
The kids always try to take my stuff, especially my phone, but also what's in my hair, and today Tammy grabbed my hairband and tried to put it on which was really funny. I have quite a few videos from today as well, but the internet is so slow that I've had quite a challenge uploading videos.
Yesterday I forgot to tell you something astounding. I asked Emmy to bring me a green ball, and he brought me a green ball. Then I asked him for a yellow ball, and he gave me a yellow ball. Finally I asked him for a red ball, and he gave me a red ball. What are the chances of that! There's no way a boy that age can know the colors, can't he? I've got to try this again. Today he would not bring me any ball when I asked.
Another remarkable thing today was that Sammy was able to feed himself, with Randy's help. That's a big deal, as Sammy always wants to feed himself and gets frustrated when Daddy is doing it because he's not able to. By the way, Randy and Barbara think the boys are left-handed. I'm wondering at what age you can tell for sure.
They've also made progress when talking, words they repeat sounding more and more like what we've said. They have been saying the word "cat" in German a lot, which usually sounds like "kaka" or "kake" (instead of Katze).
Just before 2 pm they went to bed for their afternoon nap. The same thing happened as in the morning. Sammy was so very tired, but Emmy kept him awake, running around in their bed. He was woken up several times, and by the time Randy got Emmy, he was not going back to sleep another time.
Tammy fell asleep at 2:15, so rather quickly, and after,half an hour I tried to slide her onto the bed so I could make their afternnon meal. It didn't work; Tammy woke up.
I showed Barbara how to make their cereal with fruit, today with banana (again), and at 3:10 they got to eat. By the way, the girl can't get enough of watermelon, while Emmy will not eat it.
As Sammy and Emmy had hardly slept yet, I decided they need to lie down for a nap. Since the girl had had her nap, I was able to lie down with Emmy on my chest who fell asleep rapidly. And Sammy finally got to sleep as well, being the only one in their bed.
My rule is to not let them sleep after 4 pm, so they will sleep when going to bed at night. I gave them an extra 5 minutes before getting up with Emmy and getting Sammy.
Back into the living room to play, with lots of Malian kids. It was so great to see how much fun everyone had, black and white!
After a while, I got a plantain (cooking banana) ready for dinner. It was gonna be their first time to eat it, and I was curious. I really like them. They also had the leftover soup from yesterday, and whole grain healthy bread. Then it was bath time, which Sammy greatly enjoyed as always, but Emmy still didn't want to be in it. Then they went to bed, which was again a disaster. Sammy had already fallen asleep, but Emmy was running around in bed, laughing, and lying down on top of his brother. When I'd put him flat down, he'd just laugh, like it's a game. He also kept the girl awake, who cries so much anyway. I finally called the reinforcements, and Randy held him flat down against his will until he gave up and fell asleep.
I then had dinner, and then Amadou came over to help with putting the Christmas tree decorations up, as it's A LOT of work to put the hooks onto hundreds of chocolates to be hung up on the tree. So that kept us busy a while.
I've been struggling this whole post with keeping my eyes open, making lots of typos. I have no choice but to go to bed now. It's 2:25.
