5 years 5 months 16 days

Day 1995. This morning I told Emmy to let me know when Daddy was sitting at the table for breakfast, and he did. I then got up, got the cake from the balcony and put candles and a "Happy Birthday" sign on it. Then I lit the candles and carried the cake to him, singing "Happy Birthday". I had wrapped the kids' gifts and mine last night, and he opened them. Emmy had made money out of  paper for him, and Tammy a drawing. I had a snow globe with hearts instead of snow made, and it had a picture of all five of us that is recent and one where the kids were newborn. Then I lay back down and let them all eat breakfast.

Randy left with Tammy and Emmy to take them to kindergarten, while I lay back down. Sammy stayed with me and was happy with his headset with music. In fact, I actually could fall asleep and did not have to get up often to help, less than ever before. Once Randy got home, he got him ready, and together they left to go to his weekly horsetherapy session. I continued sleeping and got up late at 11 am. I went straight to the kitchen to make lunch. Randy and Sammy then came home, and we all ate. Then Randy left to take his usual 1 pm bus to pick up Tammy and Emmy.

Sammy sat down next to me and had some pudding, while I was trying to work. It was quite a bit after 2 pm before Randy and the other kids got home. They then soon went downstairs to play, while I got ready for my 3 pm student. I taught until 3:50, then called Tammy and Emmy up so we could leave the house which we did later than I had hoped, but we still arrived on time.

We took the subway, then another subway, then walked to the Robbo-Club premises. They had been there once before, just before Christmas, for a try-out session. But it was on a different day with a different teacher. However, we did recognize the teacher as she had done the Lego-robot building workshop. I had to ask her whether it was okay for me to stay in the room, and I'm sure glad I did as the kids needed my help, and she wouldn't have come around often enough.

She introduced herself and asked who could already read. Two children could, another girl and our kids couldn't. Later another boy arrived. She then said they were going to learn some basic programming today. Every kid got a laptop and a mouse. Of course our kids have never been on a computer before and did not know how to operate one, so I helped. She had them open a simple programming tool called "Scratch Junior" and then told them how to program. They could choose a background and characters to put there, then learned how to make them move etc. I had to help them learn how to use a mouse, where to click on it, and it wasn't that easy to move the mouse cursor where they wanted and click right. Especially dragging was hard. I sat closer to Emmy and therefore helped him more, while Tammy got some help from the teacher as well as me. Emmy chose a soccer background and put two soccer players on it and a ball, and had all three move. He  had fun, and he did well.

There was a 10 minute break in the middle, as it was 90 minutes in total, and they could each choose a cereal bar. When the class was over, they didn't really want to stop, but they learned how to power down a computer.

When we put our coats on, the kids noticed that another kid had a bag from our music school. We found out that that boy also goes there and even attends the same class, just on another day. The world is small!

We left and walked to the subway, then rode two subways to get home. But we got off a few stops earlier to save some bread and pastries just before the bakery closed for the day. We got there just before the 6:30 pm pick-up time, and the lady put some goodies into a bag for us. Then we left and continued on our way home.

By 6:40 pm we were back home. I had already made their sandwiches before leaving, and Sammy had finished his, at home with Daddy, while Emmy had finished his on the way home. Only Tammy had only eaten half. I then went to the kitchen to cut up fruit for them. My 8 pm student had canceled the lesson on short notice, but I was glad as I haven't well today, with a sore throat, cough and headache. The kids ate, then went into the bathtub, then we got them ready for bed. After they were in bed, I went to the kitchen to make some chicken soup. I sat down to eat, then continued working on the computer. Now it's 1 am, and I've finished taken care of the kitchen.