21 months 25 days

Day 664. Having only slept just over 4 hours the previous night, it was still late, when I went to bed last night. This morning it was not Emmy, but Sammy who I heard and who woke me up, and I was surprised to find that it was already 8:30 am. When I went into their room, I was even more surprised to find Emmy asleep. He must have fallen asleep again, when I did not respond to him. He woke up quickly, though, once I got his siblings out of bed.

They each had a fever for about 3 days, and then a cough for 1-2 days, and a little bit of a runny nose. Emmy's cough was slowly disappearing today, and it was Sammy's first day of coughing, and sometimes he coughs while asleep. By tomorrow night everyone should be completely fine again.

Today Tammy was eating nearly the way she used to, but the other two were still eating little. I'm sure the intense heat plays into that as well. After breakfast, we went downstairs, where I turned worship music on, and we were dancing and worshipping God and praying. Randy brought down Sammy and then left to drop off our Corona test kits so we'll have the results tonight, as we need it tomorrow. I got the kids Bible out and we read some stories together. Once Randy was back, I went upstairs to clean up and then work.

By the time I sat down to do office work, I did not have much time left, so I decided to not cook today, as I'd been cooking fresh meals for them the last few days. I just warmed up some more jars that need to be used up, and had some leftover meat for them. Sonja arrived just before 11:30, and a few minutes later they sat down at the table to eat. Tammy had lots of appetite and ate her food plus some of her brother's.

I then cleaned them up, dressed them, and they played downstairs with Sonja. Sammy went to bed first; it had been days since he lasted until lunch time instead of sleeping in the morning. At 12:30 I put Emmy to bed and a little later Tammy, and they all fell asleep fast. I believe the heat makes them also more tired.

Randy went to the grocery store, while I was working. I was very tired and not feeling so great and wondering whether I was up to going to church, but we needed to go as we didn't go last weekend with the kids being sick. So I made myself get up and go to work making their dinner-to-go. Sammy woke up first, and I took him downstairs. He also woke up Emmy, who I took downstairs as well. Then I continued working. The girl still slept for a while.

I was not done getting their food ready, when Tammy woke up. I picked her up and sat down with her, and she lay on my chest for quite some time. Then Randy returned from his trip, and the others came upstairs to eat. It was about 14:50. Since Tammy wasn't moving, I stayed in the chair with her, while the others were eating. She doesn't like to eat right after waking up anyway.

We finally did get up, and I got her to eat a little bit. We then dressed them, and Sonja went downstairs with all three, while we were getting everything ready to leave at 4 pm, which we ended up doing. And by the way, today Sammy crawled through the tunnel into their house and then out all by himself today, for the second time ever!

We went to the S-train station, where we waited for our train. Emmy has been pretty cranky, and so he soon wanted out of the stroller, and then Tammy wanted out as well. They ended up sitting on the bench, and the nearby lady gave them lots of smiles. The train arrived, we got on, and then took the subway and walked to the church. It was extremely hot. Emmy especially seemed pretty tired We sat down in the back of the church, and they were staying close to us as usual. Once worship started, we held them and worshipped with them. But then things were not as usual any more. Normally they also like being on the chairs and on the floor, but not today. I had Sammy in the beginning, and then had Sammy and Emmy, while Randy held Tammy. But the boys were getting heavy after a while. Unfortunately neither one wanted me to set them down, and then the girl wanted to be with me as well. For much of the time I had two babies on my arms, who put their heads down on my shoulders. Emmy for so long that I was wondering whether he was sleeping. I was starting to hurt, but they did not even want me to sit down; they'd just start crying when I did. Randy finally suggested we'd go to the baby room to feed them, which we did.

We started feeding them, as they were looking at toys, but then Tammy just started crying and crying and crying, and we simply did not know what was wrong. Nothing we tried made a difference. I could just hold her, and she'd calm down for a short time. Emmy was eating a little, and Sammy even more than that, but Emmy was cranky too. We finally decided there was no point staying and left to go back home. Tammy was fine in the stroller, and Emmy lay pretty still, which showed how tired he was. We later figured out that it must have been a spot on her foot where the skin was off, probably from sand in her sandals, and the rubbing of the shoe against that spot hurt so bad. Once the shoes were off at home, she was fine.

We got home at 6:45 pm, and they usually go to bed at about 7. I decided to still give them a bath, and made the water cooler than usual because of the heat. And, surprise surprise, they were actually eating in the bathtub, though Tammy still doesn't care for bread. She was eating fruit. Emmy was pretty cranky and tired, and he fell asleep fast. Tammy did not need that long either.

On church day we usually order in food and watch a movie, and we did that today as well. We had good food, and found a great movie. Once we were done at 10 pm, I started working. Now it's 1 am, and I just have to turn the dishwasher on and clean the kitchen.