3 years 7 months 2 days

Day 1309. Once again Emmy was up way early. It was 8 am, when I looked at the clock, which was 7 am before the time change. Soon the others were up too, and around 9 am I was finally able to get Randy to get up. I was also very tired and had a hard time getting up. I cleaned up the kids and dressed them, then they went downstairs with Randy. It was after 10 am before I was able to start working on the computer. And the time was way too short to get done what I needed to get done before 11:30, which is when I went to the kitchen to start making lunch. My goal was to eat lunch at 12:30, but it was quite a few minutes after that.

Randy and the kids came upstairs later than usual, just minutes before we started to eat, and so they did not watch any videos before the meal, but they did after. Not only did we eat half an hour later than before the time change, I also put them to bed half an hour later, at 1:45 pm. Randy left for the grocery store at the same time. By 2 pm I was able to walk away. I wanted to sleep as well, but first did some more work. At 2:45 Emmy already walked into the room, and I lay down together with him. He actually fell asleep next to me. I'm not sure when he got up, and I'm not sure whether I actually fell asleep. Eventually I got up to give them what they asked for, then I stayed up to make some sandwiches and cut an apple for us to take with us to exercise class. Randy then went downstairs with the kids just before I started teaching at 4:30 pm.

When I finished teaching at 5:20, the kids were pretty much ready to leave the house. I quickly put my own shoes and coat on, and we left the house. We hurried to get to the train station, as our train was supposed to leave at 5:32 pm. When we got there, we saw that it was 10 minutes late. The regular S-train is not running right now because of construction, and so there was A LOT of people waiting for this train. In fact, a whole school class got on with us, using the same door, and it was crowded in there. I had to lift the kids inside and then we carried Sammy over the few steps into the train.

After getting off the train, we bought some chestnuts and then started walking to the school. It wasn't just cold, but the strong wind made us all freeze, especially after having waited for the train in the cold for so long. We were really glad, when we reached the school. Usually we're the first ones there, but not today. The teacher often arrives late, and he arrived after us today as well. Once we had taken our shoes and coats off, we went inside the gym. However, I first took Tammy to the bathroom to change her, so we missed the first two rounds of the race. We then rejoined everyone for the third round. All the kids had hoops around them, with the parents holding them and running with them. I had Sammy. Then they lay down on the floor, so that we could pull them to the other end of the gym and back. We did a few rounds of that. Then he told everyone to play with the hoops, while he got all the equipment out and set it up. I had Sammy hold the hoop, while I pulled him and twirled him around. Then the teacher told the kids to use the balls to hit their parents with them, and our kids did a great job. I then turned it around and tried to hit them with the balls. We had a big ball out, and Randy put Sammy on it and bounced him pretty high on it.

For the first time the teacher did not have the same setup as every week so far. He put two big vaulting boxes next to each other instead of one, and then he put a small vaulting box on the other side of the trampolin. I had the kids jump off the trampolin and helped them jump onto the box. As for the other end, Emmy's fear of heights was back full-force and he only went up there once, with my help, to jump off. Randy was playing with Sammy for a long time. Once the teacher had lowered the rings, Tammy was over there in line to swing, then Emmy got on as well. Finally I put Sammy into the rings, and he was very upset with me, when I pulled him out, as usual. But I got him to cheer up again quickly, when I took him to another exciting activity.

Tammy wanted to show me how well she can climb, and she went up the ladder quite a few times, and all the way to the top, which scared Randy. Emmy climbed up as well, but his height issues kept him from going to the top.

And then the teacher already started putting everything up. As usual we did another race to end class, doing three rounds of running to the other end of the gym and back. I ran with Sammy the first two times, and Randy the last. Then the class was over, we put our shoes and coats back on, and left.

We were back in the cold, walking back to the train station, where we had a 8-minute wait time for our train. I gave them the sandwiches I had made for them as well as the apple, and they ate. Sammy finished off the bread his siblings hadn't finished, as well as the piece of apple Tammy had left. It was once again an old train that arrived at 7:23 and that took us home. Just after 7:30 we were home, and the kids sat down at the table to eat a little more. I was cutting up fruit and putting it in front of them. Then they went into the bathtub, and I took the rest of their food there. Considering how late it was, we had not filled the bathtub, but only had the water come out of the showerhead. They were still having fun, and as it took time to eat everything, which they did, they were in there much longer as planned. Then we got them ready for bed. I read a few Bible stories to them, prayed for them, and put them to bed. I did not look at the clock to see what time it was. I sat down by them, while Randy was eating his food. Then he took my place, and I went to the kitchen to get something to eat. After having eaten, I went back to work. Now it's already 1 am and time to clean up the kitchen and got to bed.