21 months 6 days

Day 645. Last night it was once again 1:15, when I made it to bed, and I have to go to bed earlier tonight, as I'm so extremely tired already. This morning they were up early again, but I waited until 7:45 or so to get up. To my greatest surprise it was Sammy who I found without diaper this morning, though he still had his pj's on. He actually wears a body at night because of his leg braces, so the buttons on the bottom were open, and I guess he opened his diaper and got it off.

After breakfast I took them downstairs, and Randy had hurried more today to come down. I had just started cleaning up, when the Mobile Therapy Support lady arrived at 9 am. She played with them for the next 90 minutes. As for me, I started doing office work after the cleanup. At 11 am I stopped to go cook for the five of us. Sammy was really cranky, and so I went downstairs to go get him and bring him to the kitchen. Emmy was crying hard, when he had to stay behind. Sammy was happy in the kitchen with me, and was in the swing for a long time before I put him on the floor. At 11:30 the others came upstairs as well to eat. We had spinach with potatoes, so the perfect meal to color everything green. They ate a lot, and then had dessert, and Mommy lots of cleaning up to do. I took their clothes to the changing table and when I returned they were both standing in their chairs. I don't always put the seat belt on them. Given that they were green all over their bodies, I did not want them running around spreading it. So I put Tammy into the safe place of the bathtub, and then put Emmy there as well and turned the water on. They weren't happy, but it was the easiest way to get them clean, and Sammy joined them too once he was done eating.

Then they went downstairs with Randy, while I was dressing Sammy and putting him to bed. It was the usual time of 12:15. I started cleaning up, and at 12:40 I went downstairs to get Emmy and put him to bed. It didn't take him long to fall asleep, and then I got Tammy and put her to bed. It always takes her longer, and now that she's the one closest to the window, she has discovered the fun of hitting the blinds with her stuffed animals.

After I was done cleaning up, and eating myself, I made their afternoon meal, as I didn't expect to be here then. Just over an hour after putting Sammy to bed, I had to wake him up, so I could dress him and so we could leave on time at 1:30 pm. He was in good spirits. We had a long walk to the tram station, rode 4 stops, and then walked a short distance to the therapy center we had never been to before. Sammy's physiotherapy at the hospital ends in August, and they told us to get him into one of these centers, where the cost is also covered. For the past 5 months I've been contacting them regularly, only to hear every time that they had no capacity for new patients. And then we got a first appointment today for the center's doctor to look at Sammy.

We got there early, and because of Covid they make you walk up to the window, which now functions as a reception. I was told to wait until the doctor would come outside to get us, which she did a few minutes later. We ended up being in there with her for nearly an hour. She asked me all kinds of questions while I had Sammy on my lap. She wasn't very friendly, called Sammy "the child", and was annoyed when Sammy kept throwing his toy. She asked me to put the child on the floor. I reluctantly did but picked him up again a few minutes later, when he was looking for me. Once she was done talking with me, she looked at Sammy, how he was moving etc. She changed her tone and tried to get Sammy to like her and respond positively to her, which he did most of the time. Just a few times he wasn't too happy and looking for me. In the end she told me that he could start going to physiotherapy there starting in September.

We left, walked back to the tram station and went back home. It's really not far, just a lot of walking.

We walked into the apartment a few minutes after 3 pm, and I was surprised to find that Tammy was still sleeping. It was time for her to get up. Randy and Emmy came upstairs, and he was wearing this pirate hat that had come with some clothes we were given. We woke up Tammy, who is always cranky after her nap and hard to please. I got Emmy into his chair after he saw his plate of food, but Tammy put her head on my chest and refused, so she stayed on my lap. At least she ate a little bit this afternoon. By the time it was nearly 4, she started eating everything I gave her, while holding her, and both plates were empty. As they had eaten late, we decided to have dinner half an hour later. Randy stayed downstairs with them, while I was appreciative of having another half hour to do office work. At 4:30 I stopped and went downstairs to relieve Randy.

And then we played for an hour. The boys wanted me to throw them around, and so I spent quite some time doing that, even though one was always jealous of the other whose turn it was. Then I put them into the swing, where they were happy for a while, while it was Tammy's turn for physical activity. She'd climb up to the top of the slide, then grab my hands and I would throw her in the air like she'd jumped real high. She loved it and kept climbing back up for another turn. You can see her impatience with me in the picture, as she's waiting for me to grab her hands. I finally got tired and decided to stop and sat down on the floor. She was upset and threw a fit. She went to the couch and started throwing all the pillows at the blinds in anger and frustration. Sammy came out of the swing again, and later Emmy as well. I started tidying up and encouraged them to help me. Randy brought a package down that had arrived that they wanted to open and I told them I would after we were done tidying up. They didn't feel like tidying up and only helped for a few seconds. Once I was done, I opened the package and got out the book with sound from the series they enjoy so much. We sat down and went through all the pages. All three were really attentive and interested. We were just finishing the book, when it was 5:30 and Randy came to take my place so I could go get their dinner ready.

I went upstairs, and just over half an hour later they came up too to sit down to eat. From there they went into the bathtub, where they all finished their food. Tonight Sammy was even done eating before his siblings, which was a first. Then they went to bed, and I walked away, and they waved at me. The first time coming back, Tammy had taken her pj's off and needed a new diaper, and Emmy needed a diaper too. Tammy took her pj's off two more times tonight, before she fell asleep, which took her a long time. Emmy also did quite some crying before falling asleep.

By the way, today Sammy was saying "heiß" (hot) for the first time, and a lot, which is his siblings' favorite word.

And now I need to go clean up so I can go to bed by midnight tonight.