4 years 1 month 17 days

Day 1508. Sammy was up at 7 am this morning. I told him the alarm was not going off, so he kept waiting for it, but I still had to get him out of bed first. At about 8:15 Randy left with him to take him to kindergarten. That meant it was time for us to do school. However, Randy had asked them to watch "Dumbo", as he had gotten it out of the library and we were about to have to take it  back. And so they were watching it, while I was working on the new shelves, moving them, putting shelves in, and putting stuff in them. It looks so much better now, plus we have more room to store stuff.

It all took me while, but then I got some exercises out for them to do and reviewed how the number 0 and 1 is written, as well as the shapes with them. In the end they each got a sticker to put on their folders. Then they started playing and watching, while I turned my computer on to work. But time was short, as 11:15 was not that far away, and that is when I went to the kitchen to cook.

I was surprised that it was 11:45 before Randy and Sammy returned, which is the longest he has stayed at kindergarten yet. However, Randy was not able to leave him in the group and get ouf the room without him screaming his head off.

It wasn't even noon yet, when we sat down to eat Tammy's favorite food - cremed spinach. And all three kids ate everything in their bowl, which is rare. Only Sammy had dessert, as the other two both got a lollipop, a reward for having eaten everything at breakfast AND at lunch time. They then started playing and watching until it was nap time. I was so tired I was ready to sleep right away and had a hard time staying up until 1:30 pm. I took Sammy to his bed a few minutes early and lay down next to him. However, he thought it was fun and started laughing a lot and playing with me. Once everyone went to bed at 1:30, he continued. I finally gave up and left, while Randy sat down in the chair by them, but Sammy continued playing and laughing. I came back once more to try to get him to sleep and left again without having succeeded. I then tried a third time and failed. And then Emmy was already up. I tried to get a few minutes of sleep (sigh), but Emmy wouldn't let me. At 2:45 I had no choice but to get up.

I got everything and everyone ready, and then we left the house just before 3:30 pm. We walked to a nearby bus stop and got on the first bus arriving. We rode it for a few stops, then went inside the medical center. Lots of different doctors all had their offices in that building. We took  the elevator up one floor and walked to the eye doctor's office. The kids had a simple checkup there, their second one. The waiting room was full of people, but someone moved to make room for us to sit. I registered the kids and asked whether Randy could be looked at as well, as he's had an eye infection for the past two weeks, and thankfully they said yes. They said his infection is highly contagious, so thank God for His providence, as he would have never gone to the doctor by himself.

We hadn't waited long, when they called the kids one after another to a machine, where they checked their eye pressure. Tammy went first, then Emmy, and they wouldn't even try with Sammy. Then we waited again, until we were all called in to see the technician. Once again Tammy went first. She tested her eyessight, first with both eyes, then each eye individually, by holding up shapes that she had to identify. There were only 4 shapes, and she had a card with those four shapes in front of her. She got quite a lot of them wrong, calling everything a circle. Then it was Emmy's turn, and he did a better job. Then I sat down on the chair with Sammy, but there wasn't much she could do.

We returned to the waiting room, and this time we waited a long time, the waiting room getting more and more empty. Finally we were called in, into an empty room, where we waited for the main doctor to come get us. There were toys and books there, and we started playing ball, which is something Sammy loves. Eventually the doctor came, and we followed her into her room. It was rather dark and classical music was playing. She shone a light into all the kids' eyes and said that Sammy's eyes were a little dry. She also talked about Sammy's eyes getting checked out further, and I told her that the big university hospital had turned us down. Sammy then got an appointment with another doctor there that only comes in once a week. Then she looked at Randy's eyes and gave him a prescription.

After nearly two hours there we finally left and walked to the bus stop to take the bus home.

By 5:45 pm we were back home, which was perfect timing, as I had a student at 6 pm. Randy and the kids went downstairs, while I started teaching. They came back upstairs before I was done. Then I went to the kitchen to make their dinner. They ate, then ate some more in the bathtub while having fun. Then we got them ready for bed, I read them a bedtime story and prayed for them and put them to bed. Sammy fell asleep before I had even turned the light off.  I sat with them for a few minutes, then left to get ready for my 9:30 pm student, and Randy sat down by them. By about 10:30 pm I was done and started working on the computer. Now it's a terrible 1:30 am - terrible because I teach at 9 am.