15 months 4 days

Let me get out of the way what will interest you all, rather than who sleeps when. Tammy now has six teeth! The ones next to the middle top teeth have both broken through. Emmy has five, though the other one is about to break through, and Sammy has been fussing for three nights in a row, so his will be next.

Also, Tammy and Emmy both walk up the stairs every day to the dining room. They have no problem climbing up, and enjoy when I take both their hands, standing behind them, so that they can go up upright, like adults, while holding on to my hands. I've noticed that Tammy actually goes left foot-right foot-left foot etc., like we do, while Emmy always moves up with the right foot.

Normally they drink milk once or twice per night. Last night, it was 2:45 am, and Sammy had still not made any sounds, which is highly unusual. As I wanted to go to bed, I decided to just pick him up and feed him. He did have milk before falling asleep last night. Tonight it's Tammy who has not had milk yet, but she is the one who had milk before falling asleep tonight.

I went to bed around 3:30 last night, and forced myself out of bed at 8:50 to make their food. We fed them at 9 am, and twenty minutes later they were in bed. I lay down with Tammy right away, though I already know it takes her some time before she's tired enough to sleep. However, Randy eats his breakfast at his time, and I want to go back to bed, so it's hard to take them to the play area, as they don't want to be there by themselves.

Tammy fell asleep 40 minutes later, at 10 am, and slept longer than usual, until nearly 11:30. I had slept well with her as well, at least after the boys were up and had gone downstairs. Emmy always wakes up after half an hour, and Randy picked him up then to rock him back to sleep. Usually Sammy wakes up just minutes later, and then Emmy is up as well.

After Tammy had woken up and I had taken her downstairs, I went back to bed. It was Randy again who woke me up so we could feed them their lunch meal, which was at 12:40 today. We then took them downstairs, but Emmy was very tired, as he had only slept that half hour in the morning, so I lay down with him at 1:15, and he fell asleep right away and slept on me for an hour. I don't get to have him much, as it's usually the girl who sleeps on me. And unfortunately Sammy does not want to sleep on me at all, i.e. he just doesn't do it, even when he's tired. That will change on our trip when he'll be carried on my chest, I'm sure!

After Emmy was up and I had taken him down to Randy, I put Sammy to bed a few minutes later, at 2:25, as it was their regular afternoon nap time, and he only slept for 35 minutes. I also picked up Tammy to lie down with her, but first I made myself a sandwich, my first food of the day, and fed her her afternoon meal. We lay down just after 3 pm, while Randy started feeding the boys, and she fell asleep after 15 minutes, and slept until 4 pm, for 40 minutes, as I don't let them sleep after that time so they'll sleep at night.

I'd like to keep dinner time at the later time of 5:30 pm, but sometimes they're just so tired and cranky, like tonight, that I go upstairs earlier to get their food ready. But we had fun from 4 until 4:45 pm, with all three of them.

At dinner time Emmy did much better with (not) throwing food onto the ground; I just had to restrain his hand once. And Tammy still didn't care much about bread. Neither one ate very much tonight, though Tammy was the only one hungry when it was bedtime, needing milk.

They went into the bathtub, which Sammy just loves, loves, loves right now. You should see how he rows with both arms and legs while laughing out loud! Like it's the greatest thing in the world! He went to bed first, then Emmy, then Tammy. And Tammy again did lots of crying while I was away, and it took a really long time before she fell asleep.

10 days left before we leave for Mali. Please pray for our preparations!