Day 1325. It was a typical morning, with Emmy up around 7 am, and then Sammy up as well. Randy got up around 8 am, and after they had eaten, I cleaned them up and dressed them. The kids went downstairs, but Randy was continuing sorting through the kids' clothes upstairs, while I sat down at the computer to work. After some time he went downstairs, as he was needed there.
With noon approaching, they all came back upstairs. I had put a lasagna into the oven, but it still needed a few minutes. And so I gave them their devices to watch and play. At 12:15 we sat down to eat. The girl surprised me today because of the amount of food she ate. She had seconds, and then finished off both Sammy's and Emmy's plates. Then they all had dessert before returning to their devices. At 1:15 I put them to bed and sat down by them. By 1:40 or so I was able to walk away.
I wanted to take a nap, but never got to it. Sammy woke up before 2:30, and I got him out of bed. A few minutes later Emmy was up as well. I tried to lie down with them, as I was very tired and in need of a nap, but we were playing together. Randy never went downstairs with them. At some point I did close my eyes and got to rest for some time, but was never left alone for long. The only reason I could even do this is because my 3 pm student had canceled.
Just after 4 pm I got up to get ready to leave the house, and to get them ready. We left the house around 4:20 pm to take the 4:30 train. When we got to the platform, it said that the train was 16 minutes late. That meant we were gonna be late for the very first class of this new course! Just great! And so we had a long time to wait, and then it was delayed further, so that we ended up taking the regular 4:50 pm S-train. After we got off, we got on the subway, rode it for one stop, then went up to street level to walk to the school. It was one we had not done any classes in yet, so I had to look at my map to find the way. It was close to the subway and easy to recognize. We walked in, took the elevator up, and then had the challenge of needing to find the room. I started trying to open every door, and that way we found the right room. We were 20 minutes late for a 50-minute class.
I was surprised to see how many children there were. We took our shoes off and sat down on a mat to complete the circle. Of course it was now that Sammy said he was hungry, when he had refused to eat anything since waking up. Thankfully it was not a problem for him to eat.
The teacher asked the kids' names. Then she was about to start the next activity. She asked the kids to each sit on a mat. However, Tammy and Emmy wanted to share one. She then did a song, where the mats were boats, and we were in a storm. The kids held the edges of the mat and were moving as if in a storm and falling over at the end of the song. Emmy actually let himself fall over, but not Tammy. I was sitting with Sammy who was more interested in eating.
Then she did a song we already knew. We were all walking in a circle, and then the kids got to spin in place, when their names were called. At first Emmy just stood there, but then he started spinning. Tammy was the best at spinning of all the kids there.
Then we sat down in a circle and did another song, then she had papers they had to put in the right order. The class is for 3 to 5-year-olds, and some of the older kids could already recognize written numbers and helped getting the papers in order. We then did a song with actions that went with those drawings on the papers.
The kids were excited when the time for instruments had come. They each got to go and get whatever they wanted. Emmy came back with 3 drums, but he had to play with his hands. The teacher said that drumsticks would be too loud. Tammy had two rattles, and the teacher gave Sammy two individual sound bars and a stick. Sammy actually loved them and played them the whole time and did a good job. Emmy showed more restraint than usual, not just wildly hitting the drums the whole time but reacting to the teacher's cues as to when to play loudly and when to play softly. They were all having fun.
And then the class was already over, after a new good-bye song we'd never heard before. The kids got a paper and a stamp on it that they were happy about. Then we put their coats and shoes back on and put Sammy into his chair. We were the last ones leaving, and so we got to talk to the teacher for a few minutes. She even showed the kids the fruit rattles she had that our kids had missed in the beginning today.
We left the school and went back down to the ground level. There was a public library right there, and as we're gonna be there every Wednesday for the next few weeks, I suggested we'd go check it out. We found the kids' section, and the kids immediately started looking at books. Then they found the DVD's, and we ended up borrowing two DVD's for them to watch until next week. We did not stay too long, as it was already late. And so we left to walk back to the subway, rode it to the train station, and were glad that it was only a few minutes to wait for our train. I had not taken any bread or apples for dinner with us. We rode the train home, where we arrived at 6:45 pm, so pretty late.
I had them sit down at the table right away and started bringing them food to eat, then they continued eating in the bathtub. We then got them ready for bed, I read a few Bible stories to them, prayed for them and flew them into bed. It was already pretty late, going on 8:45, when I sat down by them. Emmy was quiet and clearly tired, but the other two were still pretty active and interacting with me. Randy was still eating, so I stayed for a while before he took my place. I then got myself something to eat before going back to work. I'm hoping to make it to bed by 1 am today.
