Day 1520. Yesterday Randy took Sammy to kindergarten, while I did school with Tammy and Emmy. They now know their upper- and lower-case first letters and can draw them. In the afternoon the Mobile Support lady came at 2:45, just as the kids were waking up from their nap. I had a student at 3 pm, then we all left the house together at 3:15, together with the lady.
We took the train, then the subway, and walked to the school.
I was feeling a little better and was the one to stay with Sammy in music class. It was their third session. Today Sammy was not very motivated and finally asked for Daddy, so Randy took my place during the last 10 minutes. All kids were not behaving well today, including Tammy. We're definitely not doing part 2 of this course.
While waiting for the class to be over, I talked with one of the other kids' parent, which was nice. Then we all left together, with that girl and her Mom. Tammy and that girl seem to like each other.
Today was not a typical day. All the kindergartens in the city were on strike, so Sammy was staying home. And then a friend came to visit us with her daughter and brought some clothes for Tammy. We had a good time talking, and the kids playing with the girl. I then had to go cook lunch, while our friends left. At 1:30 I put them to bed for their nap and lay down with Tammy and Emmy to help them fall asleep. Once everyone was asleep, I went to my own bed and got a few minutes of sleep. At 2:15 Sammy was already up, just after Rand had come back from the grocery store. I helped him out of bed and lay back down. At 2:45 my alarm woke me up, and Emmy was up right away as well. He went downstairs, where Randy and Sammy already were, while I got ready for my 3 pm class. Tammy woke up after I had started and went downstairs as well.
Just before 4 pm I was done, and everybody got upstairs to get ready to leave the house, which we did a little later than we should have, at 4:10 pm. We took the subway to the end and had a new train, much to Sammy's delight, then still had to take a city bus for a few stops.
We got to the museum 5 minutes before our set time, instead of 15 minutes early. Because Sammy is in a wheelchair, he was allowed to have an adult person accompany him for free, so we only had 4 tickets, which was nice. They were scanned, then we went into a little room, a lab, together with a couple of other people. The tour started there. A guy on a screen was talking, then the power went out, and everybody had to find a code and put it into the console. Emmy was scared, anticipating the dinosaurs attacking us, and the darkness didn't help. It took everyone a while, but in the end we had put the right code in, and the door to the next room opened.
A staircase came next, and the staff had already told us to go through the emergency exit door, so they could show us to the elevator. We took the elevator up to the next level. Everything was dark, with projections of dinosaurs and ancient animals on the walls. Then we went into a room where there was an aquarium (projection) of aquatic dinosaurs, and a cage with land dinosaurs, including a T-Rex. It was roaring at us at some point, which was a little scary for Tammy and Emmy. I was surprised how cool Sammy stayed during the whole time we were there. Nothing fazed him.
Then we came to a room, where the kids got devices into their hands to point at the screen to unearth dinosaur skeletons. It was a game. The next room projected the kids' images onto a screen with dinosaurs, then they had another game, where you were dancing with a dinosaurs. Then it was time to move on to the last level of the building, taking the elevator again.
There was a screen with a little dinosaur that was reacting to us, but we soon moved on. Then we got into a big room, where all four walls had projections on them. They had a 15 minute video they were projecting on a loop, and it was really cool. We got to be in the sky with flying dinosaurs, under water with aquatic dinosaurs and sharks, and on land with all kinds of dinosaurs, including a T-Rex. The kids were running around, especially Tammy, trying to touch them.
After we had seen the full 15 minutes, we moved on. Next they had a 4D dinosaur ride that was from 6 years old up, so we went to the next room, where they had a virtual reality ride. But you had to pay for that one extra, which we hadn't done, so we turned around to go back to the elevator, as that was the end of the exhibition. However, I really wanted to do the 4D ride, and the kids said they wanted to do it as well. So we agreed with the employee there to push the emergency button in case it was too much for the kids and went inside. It was a little room, where we were standing in the front of a jeep that was moving with the movie. We took a guided tour through a land of dinosaurs, above and under water, and of course there were some thrills. I was very surprised that Emmy was not scared, and surprised that Tammy was scared. I had her in my arms, and every time the T-Rex came, she buried her head in my chest and didn't look. The ride lasted 8 minutes, and it was lots of fun. Then we walked to the elevator and took it up to the exit level, where they had a shop set up. And a little dinosaur you could sit on, so we took pictures with them on it. We had been there for 75 minutes, when we left at 6 pm.
To go home we walked to the nearby subway stop, and Sammy was upset, when the first subway was an old one. Then we took a second subway, and this time it was a new one, so he was happy.
By 6:45 we were back home. I had taken some sandwiches with us that the boys had eaten, but not Tammy, and cut up some fruit for them to eat. They continued eating in the bathtub, then we got them ready for bed. I read them some stories, prayed for them and put them to bed. It was only just after 8 pm. Randy had already finished eating and sat down by them. I was extremely tired, but I had my 9:30 pm student, so it was time for me to work, to correct homework and get ready for my student. I taught until 10:20, needed some time to wrap it all up, and then finally went to the kitchen to make my soup. After having eaten, I went back to work. Unfortunately midnight came around way too quickly. In the end it was close to 1:30 am, before I went to bed.
