Day 1524. Tammy was waking up frequently during the first half of the night, sitting up and crying and not wanting to be comforted. She had a stuffy noise and couldn't breathe through it. She did it tonight as well, but not as often. She joined us in bed at some point during the night and slept well there, without waking up crying. When I woke up in the morning, Emmy was lying on my other side. It was once again Sammy who was up first and early, and Emmy woke up right away as well. We probably would have stayed in bed longer, but the cleaning lady was supposed to come at 9 am, so it was time to get up. It was actually 10 am before she showed up, so we could have stayed in bed longer.
But the kids really just wanted for Sonja to come. She had been with us the day before yesterday and said she was coming today as well, which was a nice surprise. Once again the kids kept asking where she was, and I told them she'd said she'd come just before noon, like last time. It was about 11:30 am, when she arrived, much to the kids' delight, and went downstairs to play with them.
I had done some tidying up and putting clothes away, then office work, and then cooking lunch. At noon everyone came upstairs to have lunch. Then they started playing, but stayed upstairs, as the cleaning lady was downstairs. Since we had to get ready to leave the house at 2 pm, I told them they could stay up instead of having a nap today. That gave them the chance to play with Sonja and have fun with her, which they did. I for myself wanted to get a nap, so I lay down, but they were so loud that it took me a long time to fall asleep. At 2 pm my alarm woke me up, but I fell back asleep after turning it off. At 2:15 pm Emmy luckily woke me up. I jumped up, and we immediately started getting everyone ready and left the house later than planned at 2:30 pm.
The six of us took the subway for a few stops - thankfully a new one for Sammy - then walked to the entrance of the huge building, where they have expositions and events. I'd seen a report on the event there this weekend on the news yesterday and immediately thought the kids, especially Emmy, would love it. And so I bought tickets online, but kept it a surprise, so that I was the only one knowing where we were going.
We walked into the building and in the direction of the hall we needed to go to. The show I wanted them to see was to start at 3 pm, which was about 15 minutes away. They scanned our tickets, and we entered the hall. It was huge. I saw a map, but did not see the name of the area where the show was to be. So we started walking and soon found it. I asked someone there who confirmed to me that we were in the right spot. We moved to a different spot along the fence, where we could see the area we needed to see better. Then we still had a few minutes to wait. Sammy was extremely cranky, just whining and whining. I was holding him and trying to cheer him up. I put him on my shoulders for a while, which worked a little bit, but not for long. When the show started, they only had those model cars and trucks and vehicles move around and explained them, then they came to right where we were, where they had a work area with diggers etc. set up, and started moving those vehicles. While Emmy and Tammy were interested, Sammy still didn't care and was whining constantly. At 3:40 pm what we had waited for finally started. They set a few buildings on fire and had the model fire trucks come to put it out. That finally got Sammy's attention. They all enjoyed watching it - from the fire and smoke to the sirene and water.
I knew that the next item on the program was a kids' program by the stage in the corner of the room, so we headed there. They had chairs set up, and we sat down. At first they had two kids at the time come forward to play a game, then they asked for volunteers and brought about 12 kids to the front, including Tammy who had raised her hand. They were playing musical chairs with them. Tammy did pretty well and stayed in the game for a few rounds, then she got a little gift after being the one left standing. Sammy was very cranky the whole time, so I put him back into his chair and took him to look around the stuff in the area. That's when I took the picture of him looking at the gokart. Sonja then took him, so I could watch Tammy play the game.
Next we walked by a wheel of fortune. They let Sammy turn it for free, and he got a lollipop. Then the other kids turned it and got small gifts as a reward.
The area where we were had all kinds of different things to try out, so that's we did. There was a taxi cut into two halves, and the kids climbed in to sit and drive it. Emmy was excited to be at the wheel. There was also a simulator, but he wasn't tall enough to reach the pedals. Then there was a huge area to build train tracks, but they didn't care to stay there. Then we found the Tiptoi area - something they have at home and love - and so all three kids started looking at books with the talking stick. I needed to go to the restroom, so Emmy came with me. We started walking around and looking for them and looking at areas we hadn't been to yet. There was the area for model planes to fly, and really big remote-controlled cars, as well as variations of all that. It all took us quite a while before we got back to the Tiptoi area; Randy had already tried to call us, he said. The other two were still having fun with the Tiptoi books. Emmy walked with me to where the small remote-controlled cars were, but the controls that were available were all not working, so we didn't stay long.
It was time to move on. We were ready to go home, and walked by the board games. The kids sat down by a table briefly, but we were ready to go, so we didn't stay.
There was another hall right next to it with different stuff, and even though we wanted to leave, we walked through it quickly. There were all kinds of creative things going on, but as it was getting late, all the kid workshops were over. The only thing they did there was to get on bikes without pedals and go around a race track a few times. Then we left for good. It was 5:30 pm, so we had stayed for nearly 3 hours.
Sammy was excited that we were going to the subway, and Tammy and Emmy were pretty hyper, playing with the balls they'd received. Gladly it was a new subway again, and just before 6 pm we were back home. Sonja went downstairs with the kids, while I had about 20 minutes to relax. Then I went to the kitchen with Sammy and started making their dinner. I was pretty tired. They sat down to eat with their tablets, and Sonja said her good-byes. Then they went into the bathtub to have fun and continue eating. We got them ready for bed, then I read them a few Bible stories. I had already prayed for Sammy before, and he fell asleep while I was reading the stories. Then I prayed for the other two and put them to bed. Randy took the seat, while I got myself something to eat. After having eaten, I went back to work. Now it's 1 am, but we change our clocks tonight, so we gain an hour.
