21 months

Day 639. Last night it was 1 am once again. And this morning I once again only woke up at 8:30, though I hear when they first start "talking". I got up and went straight to their room and today picked up Sammy first, who was crying the most. Then the others get jealous and I got them out one after another. I enjoy those precious moments with them in the morning, before they start running around, until Randy picks them up to change their diapers and then puts them into their chairs.

I made their breakfast, fed them, cleaned and dressed them and took them downstairs, where we played until Randy took my place and I could go upstairs to first clean up and then do office work. While yesterday was a really tough day (always the day after church), where I heard them crying all the time, there was no crying today, which surprised me. Today was a good day. I stopped working just before 11 am and went to the kitchen to cook lentil soup. Sonja arrived at 11:30, and a few minutes later we sat down to eat. After lunch and dessert and cleaning them up and dressing them, Tammy and Emmy went downstairs to play with Sonja until it was their turn to lie down for a nap. Randy finished up with Sammy and put him to bed. I was cleaning up, and instead of going back to doing office work, I got their afternoon meal ready - bread with peanut butter and fruit. At 12:40 I put Emmy to bed, and he fell asleep without me having to stay with him, which was good, as I had too much to do before 1 pm. Just before 1 pm I put Tammy to bed as well.

At 1 pm I left the house and took two subways to a big center, where the city does Covid tests and vaccinations. It was cold and windy and one time it rained a little. I walked by all the people there for Covid. I was gonna get that shot, but after doing research there's no way at this point I would. I walked on and went to get my shot to protect me from a serious tick-transmitted disease common in Austria. This is supposed to be a bad tick-season coming up. I had to wait a little, but not too long. I returned home at 2:30, so I had been gone for 90 minutes.

To my great surprise everybody was still asleep. That is highly unusual as Emmy typically wakes up just after 2 pm. It was only a matter of minutes, though, before all three woke up and we sat down for the afternoon meal. Emmy once again did not want to go into his chair, but at least Tammy did. Then I cleaned them up and dressed them. Even with the bandaid gone, Emmy still sees the wound on his forehead in the mirror and gets upset and says the word "aua" for being hurt. That is his favorite word right now, and he says it all the time.

All three went downstairs to play with Sonja, while I sat down to do office work and Randy left to go to the grocery store. I had about 40 minutes until 4 pm, and then I went downstairs to have fun with my little ones. Emmy was rather cranky. Sammy wants to stand on his feet all the time and gets cranky, when we don't enable him to.

And they're really bad about sharing - sometimes. They have so many toys, but so often they want to have the toy their sibling has. And often they simply take the toy away that Sammy is playing with. Often Tammy has the drink and does not want to give it to a brother. Today she went over to Sammy and put it into his mouth.

They love books, and I recently bought two picture dictionary books in a large format. It's amazing how well they're able to point out any object I ask for in the pictures. Today I decided to check whether they could do it in English just as well, and they could. I'd like to start introducing French to the mix and still have to figure out what the best way to do that is.

They also love to dance, especially Emmy. Whenever there is music, he starts dancing, and sometimes also singing. I'm glad that their dance class that was supposed to start in January is finally starting end of June. And Sammy is allowed to come along as well. Now I'm still waiting for a swim class to start somewhere. I'm glad everything is starting to open up again.

At 5 pm I went upstairs to get their food ready. Randy only returned just in time to feed them, so Sonja stayed with all three by herself. Good thing she's a kindergarten teacher. She's so great with them, and I hear all four of them laugh a lot.

At 5:30 they came upstairs to eat. Tonight all three ate very little at the table. We went back downstairs until 6:15, which is half an hour or less. I've now declared this time to be cleanup time, so they helped me put all the toys back on their shelves, and it was great to see it all tidy, when we left for the day. We also still had fun. They kept going down the slide, and I held their hands, so they could slide standing up, and then "fly" down. They were so active, going up over and over again.

Then we went upstairs and into the bathtub, and they all finished their food. While they were in the water, Randy told me that Emmy needed a new pj tonight, so I asked him to take my place holding Sammy, so I could get it. When I returned and relieved Randy again, Sammy started crying. I could not calm him down. He wanted his Daddy; he stopped crying when Daddy held him instead of me. After I put them to bed, Sammy was still crying and not letting me comfort him. And he cried for a long time. Randy held him at one time, but that wasn't really working either. Milk didn't either, nor did dental cream. The only thing that made him stop was when I was singing to him. As for his siblings, they were extremely active, running up and down their beds and turning and jumping, and they kept going for a long time. I was glad, when they suddenly all turned silent and obviously went to sleep.

I finished my office work project, which I was glad about, made my food, ate, and went back to work. Then I did the clean up and wrote today's update. Looks like bedtime is 1 am once again.