4 years 2 months 11 days

Day 1532. After three weeks, the kids had their next swim class this morning. Once again it was Sammy who was up first, at 7 am, way earlier than necessary. At 8 am my alarm went off, and at 9 am we left the house together. We took the 9:20 train, and then the tram, and walked to the swimming pool. Today we did not get a free adult accompanying Sammy, even though we should have. The half-hour class started at 10 am.

When we went in to the pool area, we did not see the teacher or her equipment, which was unusual, but we did see other people from our class. The kids went straight into the water, and Tammy and Emmy started diving right away. Our summer in America with lots of swimming has led to them loving to dive. They kept going and going, while I saw the teacher arrive and get her class ready. We then had a great time in the class. They all swim really well now, and today the teacher pointed out how well Sammy is now doing compared to before. Sammy needs to stay vertical, as he cannot keep his head up high enough, when he's horizontal, and he's doing great staying vertical now and swimming that way. Emmy was doing really well swimming, and when he moves his legs up and down, he does it perfectly. Tammy also swims well, but her legs are all over the place, and she's having a hard time moving them correctly. But they had fun, and that's all that matters.

After the class was over, we moved to the other half of the pool that was cordoned off for them to just enjoy the water. The kids were impatient to put their new diving goggles on, but it didn't work well to wear them while jumping into the water. They soon wanted to go into the baby pool and went there with Randy. I stayed in the big pool with Sammy who was having so much fun. He kept swimming and swimming and swimming. I finally got out of the pool with him, which he was not happy at all. We showered off and went to the changing room to get dressed. All three ended up on the changing table, right under the hairdryer, enjoying the hot air.

We left, took the tram, and walked to McDonald's. The kids were not happy that the only toys with a Happy Meal were still the books, as they already have all of those, but they were quite hungry. I had to distract Sammy to keep him from whining. The food came soon enough, and everyone enjoyed it. Then we took the tram back to the train station and took the 12:31 pm train home. Tammy started singing a love song to Jesus on the train, one she had made up, and it was beautiful and very touching. I told her we needed to record it.

We arrived home about 10 minutes later. The kids still had some time to play and watch videos before nap time. At 1:30 pm I put them to bed. I first sat with Sammy and go thim to sleep, then I climbed up and lay down between Tammy and Emmy. Once again Emmy was giving me a really hard time, but thank God, he eventually did fall asleep. I then left them and lay down in my own bed, where Randy was. But I didn't get to sleep. At 2:45 Sammy was already awake, and I got him out of bed and gave him the headset that tells stories.

At 3 pm I opened the curtains, and Emmy was up right away. I started dressing them with their birthday clothes and got ready myself. It wasn't 3:30 pm yet, when the doorbell rang, and the photographer and his wife arrived. I had never met him personally, but several people had recommended him. We all went downstairs, where we first had a picture of the five of us on the couch taken. Then it was just the three of them with their birthday T-shirts. It's their actual biological birthday after all, as it is tomorrow they're biologically 4 years old (their due date). That is why we take these pictures at this time every year.

Then we all went back upstairs to change into our identical Christmas pj's. In the meantime the photographer set up his Christmas backdrop, and it was great. We first took individual pictures of each kid, then all three, and then the five of us. By then it was really hard to get them to look at the camera and smile, but I hope we have one that we can use for our Christmas card. It was especially hard to get Sammy to look at the camera and smile.

Only about 80 minutes had passed, but I was exhausted. We were definitely done. We changed back into our normal clothes, and then the photographer showed us a camera from 1930 that takes black and white pictures and said he'd like to take a picture of us with it. And so we sat down on the couch again, and he took our picture. Then we talked for some time, telling them about Mali, before they said their good-byes and left.

It was about 5:30 pm, which meant another hour until I'd start making their dinner. I needed a break, and was thankful, when Randy and the kids went downstairs, but they returned only minutes later. Sammy wanted Mommy.  He then ended up playing well by himself, while the other two were watching Pinocchio. At one point Tammy came to me to record her love song to Jesus, so I did. She was switching between English and German all the time and could have gone on and on and on. I actually had to stop her. Then I gave them some leftover pizza to eat, as they were hungry, and then got the food ready for the bathtub, skipping eating at the table, as they said they didn't want to eat. Thankfully they did eat in the bathtub, as usual. Then we got them ready for bed, I read them Bible stories, and prayed for them and put them to bed. Randy then sat down with them, while I went to the kitchen to get myself something to eat. After having eaten, I went to work on the computer. Now it's nearly 1 am and time for me to join the sleeping family.