Last night I went to bed before midnight, after not having felt well all day and dealing with diarrhea. I think I also never got over the additional lack of sleep from our long trip to Mali, so I'm thankful for getting more sleep last night, which made a big difference today. While I took some American medication last night and was okay today, the babies still have diarrhea, so please keep praying for them.
When I'm in Mali, I'm pulled in several directions at the same time - even before the babies were here - so it makes me run around, taking care of this and that, for this person and that person, one thing after another. I had those moments today; the more Malians are over, the more it is like that. Today I gave our kids new mattresses, sheets, and blankets, which they all needed and couldn't get while we were gone. I found out that little Esther (3) still didn't have a mattress, so tonight she's finally sleeping on one in the girls' room with Sarata and Sanaba! (She slept with her Mom until her brother's birth 4 months ago.)
Today Amadou and our kids put up the Christmas lights in the Dining Hall, where we'll be eating our chicken dinner this Christmas. I think it looks great. The picture also shows the street kids coming to spend the night as well as our kids listening to the nightly Bible story, and two street kids get to open the chocolate advent calendar we brought.
Our kids just LOVE it when the Malian kids come over to play with them. It's mostly Esther (3), who is over all the time, as well as Jonathan. Today Patrice and Catherine were over too, who are siblings and whose mother is one of our cooks. Emmy is the most social one, and he wants everyone coming in to pick him up. He has so much fun with everyone, and I'm starting to wonder how they'll deal with having no other kids around again once we're back in Austria.
Emmy and Tammy continue bringing balls of the color I've asked for. So far they have a perfect score, even though they're not supposed to be able to do that yet.
Today they ate much better at lunch time, the beef-tomato-carrot soup I made. Barbara blended it a little bit to make it less liquid. For dinner, Barbara made a corn-potato soup, and they liked it. We also give them some Austrian wholegrain bread I brought, which they love, and of course banana with every meal. The banana should help with the diarrhea! I'm also glad I brought way to many snacks for our trip, as they come in handy now, when they're hungry and the food is not ready, or when they don't like their food.
We bathe the every night before going to bed, and so far, Emmy still does not want to go into the water. He LOVED it in Austria and always played with his sister. Too bad he can't tell me what the problem is; I'm curious if he'll get over it some time.
The ONE bed for all three continues to be a problem during nap time as well as bed time. Emmy enjoys running around in bed and thinks it's a game when we put him on his back. He wakes his siblings up, so it does not work to have him in there with them at nap time. So Emmy and Sammy have to sleep after each other, while Tammy sleeps on me. Today Randy put Sammy to bed while Emmy was still sleeping, and Sammy returned the favor, crawling to Emmy and waking him up. Tonight at bed time, I had to hold Emmy down again until he fell asleep; it's the only way it works at night.
We continue preparing for Christmas in just over a week, and thankfully I had more energy to do some stuff tonight. Thank you for praying for us!
