3 years 7 months 21 days

Day 1328. What a day! It was a typical morning, except that we had to leave the house earlier than usual. The subway is not taking us to the other side of the river this weekend as they're repairing the bridge, which meant that we had to go another way which took three times as long. We left the house at 9:20 to take the 9:30 train. It was raining and rather cold, but the kids were happy to need their new umbrellas.

We took the train and then the subway and then still had a long walk in the rain which was not much fun. We got to the school over 10 minutes before the class was to start at 10:30. As I had not had time to grab anything to eat before leaving the house, I went to a nearby grocery store by myself to buy a sandwich. When I returned to the music school, the teacher was just finishing the welcoming song, and the kids were all going to the front to sit down on the floor. I sat down by Randy and Sammy.

The teacher drew a spider on the board and did the song "Itsy bitsy spider" with them. Then she put the colors green, yellow and red on the board and reviewed that the green represented a low tone, yellow a middle tone and red a high tone. She had three individual sound bars, and the kids then came one by one to play a low, middle and high tone. Emmy and Tammy can do that very well now.

Then it was time for them to sit down by the pianos. I sat between them to help. They got to choose a finger puppet, then she did the song to learn the numbers each finger represents. They put the puppet on finger 1, then 2, etc. Then they returned the puppets and got the little animal that makes a clicking sound. Now they had to tap the animal with finger 1, then 2, etc. They get better and better at it. They returned the animals, and everyone went up front, and so did I. We made a circle, and the teacher went to the piano to do a song. The kids had to put certain body parts into the middle and out of the middle. It was to review that the left hand/leg is the lion hand/leg, and the right one the mouse hand/leg.  After the song, they sat down on the floor, while I returned to the back of the room. They all drew different notes on the board and then wiped them off. Then the teacher gave each child a guitar to play, while she was doing a song on the piano. Unfortunately there was no guitar left to give to Sammy. But Sammy was  having fun with me. After they had played the guitars, it was already time for the good-bye song, and then the class was over. They each got a sticker in their sticker books, then it was time to put shoes and coats back on to go home.

It was still raining, and we had that long walk back to the other subway ahead of us. Then we got on the subway and still had quite a ride ahead of us. It soon became clear that we would not make the 12:01 train, and we actually missed it by a minute or two. How annoying. While we were waiting for the 12:23 train, the kids were watching videos. It was pretty cold sitting outside there and waiting.

Just after 12:30 we were back home. Randy just grabbed his cart and turned right around before we were even inside the apartment. He had a pick-up scheduled at 1:30 pm, and it was across town from us. And so I was on my own. I warmed up the left-over soup from yesterday, and we sat down to eat. They had some dessert, then left to go to their devices to watch or play for a few minutes until bedtime at 1:15, which was very soon anyway. Sammy wanted to go potty, so I put him on there, and he successfully did both once again. He's been doing really well going potty! Then I put them all to bed. By 1:30 I was already able to walk away, and even Tammy was already asleep.

By 2 pm I lay down for a nap myself, but Emmy already walked into the room before I could properly fall asleep. He lay down with me for a while, but did not fall asleep. And then I could also hear Sammy, and so I was up just after 2:30 pm to get Sammy out and give them something to drink and snacks. I then went downstairs with them. It wasn't long until Tammy was up as well, and so we were all downstairs together, which is rare these days. We were playing together, when Randy FINALLY came home at 3:30 pm. He'd had some trouble and needed nearly two hours to get to the place, where he was picking up another gocart for the kids. I was glad he was finally home. He stayed with the kids, while I went upstairs to get some work done.

Just after 6 pm they all came upstairs. They wanted their devices again to watch or play. I gave them to them and then soon went to the kitchen to start making their dinner. Just after 6:30 pm Randy left again for another pick-up - a bike for himself. And this time he was gone for over 4 hours. For the second night in a row I was on my own with the kids. They sat down at the table, and I brought them the food I had cut up. Then they went into the bathtub, where they continued eating. They then came out one after another, I put a diaper on them as well as their pj's. Then we read a few Bible stories, I prayed for them, and flew them into bed. It was about 8:30 by the time I was done. I settled into the chair with the expectation of being there for a long time. I'd heard from Randy who'd once again had some issues, delaying his pick-up until 9 pm. I told the kids and told them that it was gonna be a very long time before Daddy was gonna come home. It was especially Sammy who was asking for Daddy frequently. I was prepared for a long night of whining and them not sleeping, and was shocked, when that did not materialize. I got my computer to use my time sitting there well, and the kids got quiet so much faster than usual. It was so unusual! No more talking from anyone, and then they were asleep. No one protested, when I got up after 9 pm and left the room. What a nice surprise! I got myself something to eat, then went back to work. It was 10:45 pm before Randy finally came home. He'd been out and about on his own for 7 hours today. He was pretty tired and went to bed at 12:30 am. Now it's 1 am, and I'll go to bed once I'm done with the kitchen.