4 years 8 months 15 days

Day 1719. It was a really busy day, and after a short night. Sammy did not go to kindergarten, as the hospital had told Randy on Tuesday to take Sammy to the pediatrician as a follow-up. And so I was alone with Sammy, while Randy took the other kids to kindergarten. I told Randy he needed to be back by 10 am, as I started teaching at 10, but he went grocery shopping and only returned at 10:15. Thankfully Sammy was playing well by himself those 15 minutes so that it was not an issue. Once Randy came home, he left with Sammy to take him to the pediatrician. As for me, I had two students and taught until just before noon. And then I was in a rush and stressed to leave the house on time to catch the 12:26 bus. I had already cooked the soup before starting to teach at 10, so I had a few spoonfuls while getting everything together to leave the house.

The kids had taken their scooters with them in the morning, as the weather was good, and so I took mine with me. I had gotten it for the purpose of using it on Fridays, as we have so much walking to do. The time had finally come to try it out to see whether it was fulfilling its purpose. I walked to the bus stop and thought it was a little cumbersome to have it with me on the bus. I used it on the way to the bus stop, and then after getting off to go to the next bus stop. It was practical to move faster, but I did not catch a bus I would otherwise not have caught. I was surprised how tiring it was to run the scooter, but later I figured out what to do different so that that was not the case and then it worked a lot better.

I got to the kindergarten just before 1 pm, and when I looked into the room, the teacher was doing a Mother's Day song with the kids and asked me to wait for a few more minutes. So I waited outside, in their locker room, until they came out with their Mother's Days cards they had made. I only had my purse with me because of the scooter and had to somehow fit those inside; it was already really full with their sports outfits, shoes and snacks. Then we grabbed their scooters and left.

First we had to go down a long road to get to the bus. We all used our scooters. I took breaks ever so often. Tammy stayed closer to me, while Emmy was a little faster, but it worked out really well. The bus was already at the bus stop, when we got there, and we made it. I was glad that the last row was available as it was the perfect spot for the three of us with our three scooters. We rode the bus for 15 minutes, so that's a while. The kids were eating snacks.

After we got off, we still had to go down the road some distance - another perfect stretch for the scooters. All in all, I'm not sure it saved us much time having them, but it was nice to get to our destinations faster. We reached the sports center a few minutes before 2 pm, which gave us just enough time to go to the locker room, get changed and make it to the class in time.

When we walked into the restaurant that you have to walk through to get to the tennis courts, I was surprised how empty it was. Neither did I see any other kids or parents. There are two other boys in their class. But not today. It was only the two of them, which was nice for them. The parcours the teacher set up was only half as long. He made the kids hit balls with their rackets and made them run left and right. One time he had one kid on one side of the net and the other on the other, and one kid had the tennis racket and the other a hoop. He'd throw a ball to the kid with the racket who had to hit it, and the other kid had to try to have the ball fall through his hoop. Their success was limited.

And they had their first back-and-forth play time with the teacher. Emmy had quite an exchange going one time; all in all Emmy plays a little better than his sister.

At 3 pm the class was over. They got changed again, and we grabbed our scooters and started the long walk/ride to the S-train station. We only waited a few minutes and then got on the train that we rode for 15 minutes. Randy called, and I was surprised that he and Sammy weren't home yet. They had a crazy long wait time at the pediatrician - a visit that wasn't even necessary any more - and Randy telling them that kids with cerebral palsy are not good at waiting made no difference at all. Even when Sammy cried and and cried and cried, they couldn't care less. Randy then went outside with Sammy and decided to go pick up Sammy's specially fitted shoes at the shoe store, which he was going to do after. I'm amazed he had time to do that.

After we got off the train, we got on the subway that took us home. I was guessing that Randy and Sammy were on one of the subways just before ours. Thanks to the scooters, we reached our building fast. I checked the mail, and when I looked to the entrance, there were Randy and Sammy. They had actually been on the same subway as us! It was 4 pm.

I was glad that I had no 4 pm student. I was really tired, but I still had a 5 pm student. Randy took the kids downstairs and returned upstairs before I was done with my student. Just after 6 pm I went to the kitchen to make their dinner, which starts our evening routine.