5 years 7 months 3 days

Day 2041. What a day we had yesterday! I was exhausted all day today, worse than usual, struggling until the evening. Of course I went to bed at 2:15 am. Last night only Emmy joined me in bed. This morning they came to me more often then usual, waking me up every time. Randy finally left with all three to take them to kindergarten, and I got some more sleep until my alarm went off at 9:30. I had a hard time getting up and getting ready for my 10 am student.

Usually I'm fine, when I start teaching, but today it took me a while to get over the tiredness. I had some trouble formulating phrases in the beginning, and I had to let my business English student know why that was the case.

After I had finished with her, I wrapped up that lesson and get ready for my next lesson only minutes later. I finished with my second student at 12:30 pm. Randy left a few minutes before that to go pick up Tammy and Emmy and take them to tennis. I wrapped up my lesson and left the house at 12:45 pm to go pick up Sammy.

When I walked into kindergarten, Sammy was sitting in a very low sports wheelchair. Those have their wheels tilted. His physiotherapist there told me that Sammy was really fast in this easy-to-steer wheelchair. Sammy was happy to see me and transferred to his own wheelchair, then said his good-byes.

By 1:15 pm we were back home. I hadn't even eaten anything yet, but could barely keep my eyes open. I got myself something to eat, and put Sammy on the little chair, where he could use his headset with story or music chips. Of course, every couple minutes Sammy needed me to get up for something, which was extra hard given how tired I was. I just wanted to close my eyes for a little bit. Eventually I did and asked Sammy to give me a few minutes. However, he still wanted something from me. I pretended I was asleep for a few minutes. then I got up to give him what he wanted. People with healthy kids don't realize what it means to have a special needs child. The same way people don't realize what it means to have triplets. And now image the double burden of triplets AND a special needs child. People cannot, and I wished there was some empathy and understanding and people offering to help. Randy and I are completely on our own, and sometimes that really hurts. We're both going fullsteam ahead at all times - how much longer can we keep it up? The other day Randy fell, when he ran to catch a train, and hurt himself. I can tell that the older he (we) gets, the bigger the consequences of a fall or injury.

After I'd had to get up because of Sammy and had given him what he wanted, I went to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the kids. I also got everything ready for us to leave the house. At 3 pm Sammy and I left to walk to the subway. We took the subway, then a train and got off after two stops. We rode the elevator down and then back up on the other side. We only had a few minutes until the train with Randy, Tammy and Emmy was going to arrive. When it did, I rolled Sammy into the train, and Tammy stepped out to be with me. Randy and the boys were going to Emmy's soccer class, while Tammy and I were going to her ballet class.

We walked down to the street and to the bus stop and rode the bus to dancing school. The bus had come quickly today, and so we were early. Tammy had plenty of time to put her ballet outfit on. At 4 pm her class started. I stayed in the locker room, on my phone and also closing my eyes for a short time. From time to time I went to the door to look inside at what they were doing and take some pictures.

Just before 5 pm the class was over, and Tammy got dressed again. Then we left and got on the next bus that was taking us to the subway. I was still so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. We got on the subway and were home by 5:30 pm.

All I wanted was to lie down, but I had no time. I had to go to the kitchen to cut up fruit for the kids. I got their fruit plates ready and put them on the table. Tammy started eating. Unfortunately there was no time left to lie down. I turned my computer on and got ready for my 6 pm student, then started teaching. Randy and the boys arrived while I was teaching. I then made Randy aware that there was a bread pickup, and he left right away for it. Sammy wanted to go with him and was crying. I then asked his siblings to play with him, causing Tammy to have a fit because I had taken the tablets away. All that happened while I was teaching, having to excuse me every time to take care of it. And Tammy tried several times to get into my room, crying hard because she wanted her tablet. It was tough - and embarrassing in front of my student.

At 6:50 pm I was done teaching, and a few minutes later Randy returned. I took Tammy and Emmy downstairs for piano practice. After all the crying Tammy had done, I was surprised that she was fine again and doing a great job practicing. And then I was surprised that Emmy didn't want to practice. I finally gave up trying to get him to do it, and we went upstairs, where they went into the bathtub, where they ate more fruit. Emmy had skinned his arm at tennis today, and the hot water hurt him. It also looks like he's got an eye infection. After getting out of the water, I got Emmy to go downstairs with me for piano practice. Then it was story time, even though time was short. I prayed over Sammy first, then read them a story and prayed for the other two. I told them they had to go brush their teeth, while I sat down at the computer for my 8:10 to 9 pm student. After 5 minutes I wrote her and found out that she thought we had no lesson today and that she was not coming. Tant pis, as we say in French. I was glad about it, though I would have preferred to know early as I would not have stressed with the kids so much. They were still awake, so I went to them. Emmy wanted a song, and actually fell asleep quickly, when I started singing over him. Then Tammy wanted me to sing over her, and I did. She was still wide awake, though. Sammy was already asleep.

I then went to the kitchen to get something to eat and sat down at my computer to eat and enjoy a show at the same time. After I was done, it was time to work on today's pictures and yesterday's and today's report. Now it's after midnight, and I'm very tired again. I sure hope I get to bed earlier today, but now I have to go load the dishwasher.