15 months 25 days

Tonight I finally got a hold of a missionary doctor friend who gave me some advice regarding the babies having diarrhea for the sixth day now, which I'm thankful for. Please keep praying for them. I don't think any of them had a fever today. Emmy, though, is really cranky as a result, and having already had a lighter sleep before, tonight has already been pretty tough, with him waking up frequently. At bed time, it took him longer than ever to fall asleep, and I didn't know what to do any more. He woke up his brother twice, and also woke up his sister, and kept walking around in bed instead of sleeping. It took a very long time for him to fall asleep, and he's been up several times since, and is even right now, at 20 after midnight.

I lie down with Tammy, and sometimes with Emmy, during the day, so I do miss out on some of the activity in the living room, where Randy is with the rest of the kids and Barbara, and often the Malian kids that come over. This afternoon I could get never get Tammy to fall asleep. We now put Sammy down for a nap first, both morning and afternoon, and then Emmy gets the bed to himself, and I lie down with Tammy. That's the only way, as Emmy would not let another baby sleep who is in there with him.

I had some fun time playing with our little ones in their play area today, and especially Emmy is tired of the little confined space. He wants to explore what's OUTSIDE of that area, so I often take him with me when I'm doing things. They all love the cats and talk about them all day long, and when they see them, they go after them. Brownie is the friendliest cat you can imagine, but she's not fond of our wild kids and runs away and hides. Emmy is still scared of her.

Food times have been difficult, with homemade food, and Emmy especially being a picky eater, plus I wonder if his belly is hurting, as he's not had much appetite. Thank God he likes bananas so much, and they should also stop him up. And thank God I brought so many snacks with us from Austria, as sometimes they're a good solution when the food is not ready, or when they refuse to eat anything else. We've been giving them diarrhea medication with every meal, but that is used up now. Why don't they give us 3 bottles when we have 3 kids?!? But tomorrow we're buying what the missionary doctor told us to get.

It's been a tradition since the beginning to bake Christmas cookies with our kids, which has always been a precious time spent together. Thankfully Barbara is a good cook, and she made cookie dough from scratch, and agreed to do the cookies with the kids.

We split our kids into two groups that were around 5 children each. The first group came while I was lying down with a baby, and from the pictures it looks like they had lots of fun. The second group were mainly the older boys, and they greatly enjoyed it as well. For Sanaba it was the first time she'd ever made Christmas cookies, as we were not in Mali last Christmas. Tomorrow they'll all come at the same time to decorate them all.

Today it was the first time I saw our 19-year old (but mentally 5-year old) handicapped Hama interact with our babies, and it was cute to watch.

Bakary (17), who has a special place in my heart as I wanted to adopt him (he was on the street at the age of 3 after his parents died), spent more time with them today than he has so far. He even put Emmy on his shoulders!

And I like the picture of Tammy sitting in Emmy's chair with her feet in the air. And Sammy is our photogenic boy, with always the greatest smile for a picture.

Last night I went to bed around 2 am. It's been hard to get things done, and I just don't seem to be able to catch up. I still have a little time tonight, so I hope to be able to get some more office work done.