16 months 30 days

Last night I made it to bed just after 3 am, after giving Sammy milk since he had not asked for any yet all night. They woke up at 8 am, like clockwork every day, and I got up to make their breakfast. It's not just cereal with milk any more, but I have to cut up fruit and get the snacks out, so it's more work and also takes longer, plus they like making a mess. I have to clean their high chairs after every meal now.

I then cleaned and dressed them and let them run around until Randy was done getting his breakfast ready and taking it downstairs. He only carries one baby at the time down the stairs, Sammy being the last one. And then I get to go back to sleep, which is usually at 9:30 already. Today my alarm was set for 11:10, as I had to cook, so it wasn't very long.

I got up and started cooking lunch for the five of us - pork chops, potatoes and vegetables - and it was actually ready just before noon. The boys were still sleeping while I was cooking, but got up in time to eat.

After the fun of lunch, feeding them fruit, snacks and yoghurt after the main meal, it was time for Tammy's one and only nap of the day. She's pretty tired by 1 pm, and falls asleep rather fast. I had to work on keeping Emmy away from her until I could take him downstairs. Once Randy and Sammy joined us, I left for a short while to clean up everything, and then came back down.

We have the kids' shelves set up all along the floor-to-ceiling windows so they can't get to the blinds, as they love playing with them. There is a gap by the wall, and Randy put all the big stuffed animals there to keep them from going through. Well, our little Emmy is very smart, and today I watched him remove the animals so he could get through and he made it all the way to the car sitting right against the window. He couldn't move the car, though, to go on.

The past few days it has not worked to put Emmy and Sammy to bed around 1:30 or 2 pm, so today we were not gonna do that. Tammy already woke up after 1 hour, which is unusual, as she normally sleeps two hours, so I was surprised when Randy was coming downstairs with her at 2 pm. And then the party started. They were playing really wild, moving the house and tunnel all over the place and having lots of fun. I got them to laugh and giggle and run away from me laughing as I was pretending to try to get them. I haven't uploaded the videos yet.

Instead of at 3 pm, we went upstairs for their afternoon meal at 2:30 pm, which was a good decision, and we'll keep doing it this way. They had their cereal with fruit, and I got fresh fruit, snacks and yoghurt out as well. After cleaning them up, the boys lay down for their afternoon nap; it was already 3:15 pm, so that gave them 45 minutes of sleep until 4 pm, which is when we woke them up.

As for Tammy, we went downstairs to play and had fun. At 4 pm her brothers joined us, and the fun continued. Emmy impressed me with his ability to put blocks on poles; when I tried it with Tammy, she was not really interested, but Emmy sovereignly put one after another on it. Later, Emmy was trying to climb on top of the heavy box Randy has put in front of the baby bed barrier so it cannot be moved, and while he struggled, Tammy simply climbed on top of it, showing her brother how it's done. They then gloated, being proud of their victory, and looking outside their play area. Randy told me one of them later fell off the box, though I have seen them both being able to climb down.

At 5 pm I left them to get dinner ready, which takes me half an hour. At 5:30 everyone came upstairs to eat. And they ate everything on their plates again. Then we went into the bathtub, and then to bed. At first nobody needed milk. Tammy was crying when I'd leave, and it would get worse, so I returned a few times, before she fell asleep, after driniking the leftover milk I had just given Sammy, who wanted some before falling asleep. Emmy woke up later, demanding his milk.

After I was able to walk away, I took a bath myself, and again fell asleep for a moment. I'm just the most tired at that time of day. After coming out I went to work, doing housework and office work. I'm hoping to be in bed by 3 am again.