3 years 6 months 11 days

Day 1290. Yesterday we all stayed home. I was teaching four hours in a row in the afternoon, which was pretty exhausting, and then another hour from 9 to 10 pm. After lunch, Sammy was on the floor near me. I looked over, and there he was, pulling himself up onto his knees and then trying to push himself up with his arms so he would get into an upright,  kneeling position, which is the way he sits. The other day Randy had put him down on his belly and he had sat up by himself like that. I started filming to capture him sitting up, but I might have distracted him, as he never succeeded. After a while he got tired trying.

This morning I did not have an alarm set, trusting my alarm clock called Emmy, and he never disappoints. He was up way early again, which I realized, when I looked at the time after he had already been up for a while. Soon his siblings were up too, and then they all listened to stories on their headsets. At one point Emmy gave his headset to Sammy who hasn't much liked them so far. He liked the music chip, but that's the one that's been lost. Everyone was so awake and active that even though we already had to get up an hour earlier than usual, Randy got up even earlier than that. I got up once they were done with breakfast and cleaned them up and dressed them. And then they were done before the arrival of the Mobile Support lady. They wanted to stay upstairs for the short time until then, and so I let them play while getting ready to work myself.

At 9 am she rang the bell, and the kids were eager to open the door and greet her. I then talked to her for a few minutes before she went downstairs with the kids. Tammy and Emmy had wanted to wear their princess and Ryder costumes that they proudly showed off. I sat down to work, while I could hear them having fun downstairs. Randy took a picture and video of her having all three in her lap and do the song, where they "fall off" at the end.

She left at 10:30, and at 11:15 I went to the kitchen to put the soup on the stove and add some more ingredients, then I returned to my computer. Randy and the kids soon came upstairs, and the kids started watching videos. At noon we sat down to eat. Everyone ate everything, and Tammy and Sammy had icecream. After cleaning them up, they returned to their videos. I put them to bed at 1:15, then Randy sat down by them, so that I could lie down as well. I was very tired and had to teach at 2:30. I set my timer to 50 minutes and closed my eyes, but it always takes me a while to fall asleep.

Way too soon it went off and woke me up. About the same time Randy got up from the chair and hit something, making a loud nose that woke up Sammy. I then got him out and put him on the floor. And then Emmy was up as well. I had to close my door, though, and start teaching at 2:30 pm.

After I was done at 3:20 pm, I finished getting the kids ready, and we left the house. Sammy was so excited to be in his new wheelchair again. We went to the subway, got on, then switched to another line that we took for one stop. Once up on street level we did not have far to walk left. We reached the French Institute with the long staircase up. I'd been told that there was an elevator and asked the doorman where it was. We then all took the elevator up, and the doorman let us into the school. We walked to the kids' classroom, where we were the first ones. We had actually arrived a few minutes early today. Sammy wanted out of his chair, so I got him out.

A few minutes later the class started; there were three other kids there. Emmy had a dirty diaper, so Randy left with him to get him changed, which meant he missed the greeting song. So only Tammy and Sammy got their greeting song. Sammy was hungry and eating and just looked at the teacher instead of responding, at least at first. Then the kids put their pictures on the board, and Tammy put theirs up. Next the teacher did the action song she's made up and added to each week, but she keeps changing the words, which doesn't help. I helped Sammy do the actions. Tammy was not very motivated to do them. And Emmy returned during the song.

Then the teacher reviewed the numbers we had done last week, using fingers to show the numbers 0 to 3 and then adding 4. Our kids can't even count to 5 in German/English yet! They always make a mistake somewhere.

Then she got a paper out that had ladybugs on it, and each one of them had a different number of dots on it. The kids then had to add the numbers, but of course they don't know how to write numbers yet. Then she finally handed out papers to color, which Tammy had been waiting for. She told them what number each number was and asked them to color zero with a specific color, reviewing colors that way, then 1 another specific color, etc. Tammy has gotten pretty good at coloring within lines, while Emmy is still not holding the pen right and not trying to stay within the lines. But they were all enjoying coloring, including Sammy.

After they were done and everything had been put up, the teacher got the same story book out as last time and told the same story again. Sammy was a little restless and wanted to sit in his chair, so I put him in, and he had a good view from up there. The kids all listened carefully as she was telling the story.

After she was done, she looked at the clock, but the class was not over yet. She hadn't really done anything new and didn't know what else to do with her time. Even before today I had already decided to not enroll them in part 2 of the class, but to teach them French myself, and I've already bought a few books for that. She then had them put all the teddy bears away and stack the pillows, and then the class was over. We put their coats and shoes back on and went back to the elevator. We walked to the subway, rode the elevator down, and got on. We rode it for one stop, then walked to the other line that took us home. They wanted to watch videos, but I told Emmy he hadn't behaved well enough in class, and he was not upset for as long as I had expected.

We got home earlier than usual as well. It was just after 5:15 pm, which suited me very well, as I had a student at 5:30 pm. Randy and the kids went downstairs, while I sat down to teach. They came back upstairs super early, though, and disrupted my class, but it was alright. After I was done, I went to the kitchen to make their dinner, and it wasn't long until they sat down at the table to eat. Then they went into the bathtub, where they continued eating. We then got them out and ready for bed, and I sat down with them to tell them a few Bible stories. Then I prayed for them one after another and flew them into bed. It was about 8 pm, and I sat down by them. I stayed for a while, then Randy took my place, while I went to the kitchen to get something to eat. After having eaten, I started working on the pictures. Now it's nearly 2 am and time to clean up the kitchen and go to bed.