Um, Excuse me?

I had my front teeth fixed yester day. This pleased me a great deal, I haven't smiled in a picture in about a year and a half because one of my teeth was broken off.

We had a number of translation difficulties, which happens every time I try something new. New undertakings, new vocabulary. This can be managed. It's when the cultural gap yawns that you find out what you didn't know.

He sat down and said, "You don't want mwah mwah wah, do you?*

So I asked him what that was. He scratched his head a bit and turned around and came out with a needle. Mwah mwah wah turns out to be Novocain.

So then I sat up straight, which alarmed the nice dentist very much. Dentists prefer their patients prone where they can strap them down when necessary, it seems to me. This was really a new revelation. People have fillings done in their front teeth without Novocain? A lot?

Listen, I am a battle hardened veteran of dental work, and I am an ideal patient. I have been known to go to sleep in the chair. I have a gold tooth which is a work of art+ because I am such a good little dental patient that I was once asked to be somebody's final exam.** I have a very high threshold of pain so they can make little mistakes all they like with no more than an inquiring look from me. Despite the horrowshow dentist of my youth who held my mouth open with a scissorlike thingie ++ which really hurt, I have no dental hangups of any kind. +*

But I do not consider Novocain to be optional. I have no plans to allow anybody to go into my mouth with a Black & Decker without some kind of painkiller. Why would anybody? I mean, other than a couple of creative kinks descibed in the DSM IV, I cannot imagine why anybody would court pain. Does it get you out of a couple days in Purgatory or what?

So I asked the nice dentist if a lot of people had fillings without Novocain. Oh, yes, he said, most people. So I shared with him that I was not like most people, indeed, I was very, very special, and thus required anaesthesia prior to dental work. He was very surprised. But agreeable.

Next week I get my molars filled (I wanted to start in the front because it has been driving me nuts for over a year) and I have already made clear that I fully expect Novocain for them, too. The dentist just shook his head. Agreeably.

Delicate hothouse flower, that's me. It's an American thing, no doubt. Oh, Beautiful, for Novocain, for pain free dental work.....

*mwah mwah wah is what words sound like when you don't know what they mean. Think back to the teacher's voice in Peanuts.

+ Every time I get a new dentist they admire my gold tooth. Sometimes it brings tears to their eyes, such a poem of dental work it is. But nobody can see it but a dentist so its value is somewhat limited. I wonder is, after I die, somebody will dig up my remains (of which it will be a part) and decide that it was in fact a religious artifact and conclude that I was thus a goddess. Probably, huh?

** when dentists get their board certifications, they need to find somebody to lie there and be worked on. It takes forever because at every step some Dental Examiner has to come over and Examine the work, make mysterious notations on a clipboard and then go to one of the other sweating candidates. I told my own candidate lawyer jokes to cheer him up.

++ and thus ruined my chances of ever enjoying "Edward Scissorhands"

+* Well, I did bite him pretty hard and was he mad. I did increase my vocabulary there, too, though not in the same way as yesterday. Dental work is so educational.

Well, today Douwe read his first book

Okay, it was Dick and Jane. To be precise it was "Up Spot up, Go spot go, run spot run, come spot come, silly silly spot" Or something like that.

But he actually read it as opposed to reciting it, so that's something. I guess the whole "look and say" thing was the way to go with him at least for now.

Hey, it worked for my parents, right?

Mr. Wonderful the smaller

had a great day at school. Mr. Wonderful the larger had a difficult morning. It isn't his fault, he has never actually done the "beginning of school" thing. First thing this morning, Thing Two walked proudly out the door with Thing One, swinging his lunch box merrily, to go to school.

Twenty minutes later I got a phone call. It was papa. "He's crying, what do I do?". Daan was wailing up a storm in the background.

This of course violates the First Law of Parenting*. But it was too late to mention that now. I told him to find a teacher. It was my hope that he would get her attention whereupon she would take over Daan and tell Paul to go home, promising to call if he did not calm down. My own experience is that teachers want parents out of there ASAP in this situation. The only alternative really is to commit yourself to staying until the child is not afraid any more, half measures do not work in this situation. And having a parent in the classroom is disruptive.

Ultimately the teacher came over and took over and sent papa home, a bit shaken but none the worse for wear. Then she apparently went and got Douwe, who was in the next room, who calmed Daan down a treat. Or at least, no one called.

So now I guess Dearly Beloved has had his parental hazing.

When we picked them up this afternoon, several mothers came over to me to tell me that Daan calmed right down as soon as Paul was gone (which I know not to be true, he calmed down as soon as he saw his brother). So apparently it was quite a scene. Also that Daan is the cutest little thing they ever saw, which I already knew. I was fairly nonchalant I think from their perspective, but then, my biggest concern was that Daan would withdraw. When he is screaming his guts out that is actually a good sign, it means he thinks he can change the situation to suit him. Then you only have to show him how. When he withdraws, you can pretty much resign yourself to a very long haul of a different kind.

The teacher simply said that he did fine and that it was lovely to see my kids together. She asked him if he would come back tomorrow and he promised he would. This was genius on her part as he has been talking all evening about how she wants him to come back.

Daan said school was great and announced to all and sundry that the teacher was his teacher, his very own.

*Which is of course, Never Let 'Em See You Sweat.

This is a little Dutch boy

In a, um, big Dutch birthday hat.  This is what a Dutch birthday crown looks like. It is made by the teacher and then the birthday boy sits in a little wooden throne painted in many colors in circle time and beats on a birthday drum while the other children sing about sixty gazillion songs about how marvelous he is and how great it is to be 4 and going to Big School.. 

Oh, and that's the other Batman lunchbox which had to be in the picture too.  Looks like he's ready to go.

Daan Rides a Bike

Today Daan rode his bike into town for the first time. This was partly to make up for the fact that I wouldn't let him ride it to school today* and partly because we had to do the start school shopping today and Lufthansa lost my stroller+. He starts big school tomorrow as he is now 4. ** 4 is the Big Birthday around here because at 4 you are Big and go to Big School.

Daan has an unfortunate habit of freezing up when he is frightened or surprised. This may work for your survival out on the veldt somewhere when the nearest predator is a large python, but it really sucks when the nearest predator is a Mercedes Benz. As I feared this morning, when he spots a car while he is crossing the street, he brakes abruptly and freezes, sort of hunches over, and curls up his legs. In short, he gets as close as you can to the fetal position without actually getting off the bike. So I dragged his bike with him on it across the street twice. Though the drivers of the oncoming traffic were apparently familiar with this phenomenon as they mostly were laughing when they passed.

However, a few rousing rounds of "KEEP PEDALING" at strategic moments (just before his brain freezes up, once the feet are off the pedals it is too late) solved the problem on the return trip. He sang a little song which goes "on my bike, on my bike, on my bike, my bike, my bike" the whole way home. He got many indulgent smiles ++ and a new pair of shoes and an ice cream, so Daan was perfectly satisfied with the journey.

* Because the thought of him making the two crossings at rush hour was a little more than I could take, even if I was right there -- I would also be on my bike and therefore further away than the car which hit him.

** Boy, is he 4. A steady stream of guests yesterday plus a birthday party at nursery today guaranteed that he is really, really 4. This practice actually works -- it is seared into his mind that he is, in fact 4. He even ate his dinner tonight in bites of 4 -- 4 beans, 4 bits of potato, and so on, because he is so 4 he cannot stand it.

+ Don't get me started, two strollers in six months lost on a transfer. I must be doing something wrong. Next time I am putting the damn thing in the overhead bin.

++ the Dutch love to see the torch passed on to the next generation of cyclists, or maybe it was that his hat is too big and makes him look like a mushroom.

Daan blowing out, er not blowing out

the candles.  He hid behind me until somebody else blew them out.  Then he insisted they did it wrong and he had to do it.

Cheese

Daan's reaction to eating the cake

Somewhat less problem there.

The Train

The Bike

Funny, funny Spot

D'you know, the humor of the Dick and Jane books is exactly at Douwe's level. He thinks that it is the funniest thing ever when Spot shakes off his coat on Dick and Jane or sneaks Dick's hot dog off the stick when his back is turned. And when Puff falls into the wading pond, well, he just explodes in giggles.

Funny, funny Spot. Silly, silly Puff.

Two days of complaining is enough

So I am not mentioning that we were all wide awake from 2 am to about 5 am. We woke up starving. Tonight I made southern fried chicken and french fries for dinner, which guaran-damn-tee'ed that my kids would get enough protein to stay asleep tonight. If that doesn't work, I'm bringing out the big guns and feeding them turkey tomorrow.

Now the house is scrubbed, the cellar is bulging with things to eat and drink, the flags which say "I'm 4!" are hung, the pin which says "I'm 4!" is made (because the party shop where we buy them is doing inventory, and you are not officially one year older around here until you have a pin that says you are), the birthday cake is made and Spongebob is sitting on top of it with that shit eating grin, (the cake was not baked, you can't bake if you haven't got a real oven, so it's a cheesecake-y thing), the presents are wrapped, the balloons are strung.

No, we haven't got any flags which say "I'm 63!". Nel has no birthday anymore, remember? She gave hers to Daan. She will remain 59 in perpetuity.

The new bike which Oma hunted the whole of Holland for is sitting in the middle of the floor festooned with balloons. (Oma had to hunt the whole of Holland because Daan is small. Very small. So small that the bikes in his size are mostly toys and not "real bikes" at all. Wonder of wonders, she found a real bike that small. Photos tomorrow.)

The train which Grandmary sent is wrapped in the most god awful shiny gold foil paper you have ever gone blind looking at. Which will please Daan endlessly, a real magpie that kid of mine.

And I am going to bed. For a week. Except that I have to wake up in time to take the pictures.

Jet lag sucks part 2

Paul woke us all up at noon, which was pretty easy because...er, better back up. We all woke up at 2 am starving to death. So we trooped downstairs and had something to eat. Luckily we didn't wake anyone because both the night owls in this house (who are not jet lagged) were just going to bed.

Then the boys piled in bed with us and demanded a reprise of Hop on Pop before they would go to sleep. Then they bugged each other for about an hour (I'm bigger. No, I'm bigger. Wah, mom, tell Daan I'm bigger. No, I am bigger) before we all finally went to sleep (If I hear one more word out of the two of you I am going to show you who's biggest.) Then Paul woke us up at noon.

And the two of us who are hard wakers bitched and moaned and carried on and tried to go back to sleep on the couch. The one of us who is not demanded that I unpack his toys, most notably the sword and shield.

Then I did three loads of laundry, separated the sword fighters, cleaned the bathroom upstairs, separated the jousters, cleaned the bedroom, separated the Dark Magicians, cleaned the kitchen, sent Batman and Robin to different rooms to play in, swept the floors, confiscated the scissors from the makers of the Millenium Puzzles, came up with something for dinner, cleaned up the paste from the completion of the Millenium Puzzles, made dinner....my Cinderella complex is kicking in and the fairy freakin godmother is late. My primary complaint is the above mentioned laundry. Now, listen, I did my laundry from the trip, on the trip. Other than 3 sets of jammies I brought home clean laundry. So what laundry was I doing?

The laundry I left, of course, plus laundry since about Tuesday. It appears that Dearly Beloved did his laundry while we were gone and it never apparently crossed his mind to do the laundry that was already dirty. More on that later.

Dearly Beloved did buy me a really thoughtful gift while I was gone, it was a refill for my day runner. This is not the height of romance perhaps, but I do use it every single day, I use it quite a lot. So it was nice. Since I do use it every day quite a lot, I had already bought one. I did not want to tell him that because we Do Not Ever discourage a spouse from buying a thoughtful gift. I figured I would just exchange it and everybody would be happy.

Dearly Beloved did volunteer to do the shopping for food and also for Daan's and Nel's birthdays on Sunday. This got him out of the house while I was doing the aforementioned. All I had to do was make the list and tell him exactly what to get. Which I did except for the little toys to put in the party bags for Daan's party at school on Monday. I put right on the list, "16 toys for party bags".

This is a non-specific item, you see. When I say "exactly what to get" I mean I have to write down exactly what to get.

So he came home and said that he looked everywhere and there weren't any.

Really, not a single toy in all of Holland. None, zip zilch, zero.

So then after dinner I went with Nel into town and we bought the toys. Also the party bags. And we noted that they have Yu-gi-oh tennis shoes now. Something makes me think I am about to be a couple twenty five euros poorer as soon as my elder child sees them -- or Oma tells him where they are.

While I was shopping I went to exchange the day runner thingie. They refused to exchange it without a receipt. So I was going to have to throw it away, becasue Paul never, ever has the receipt, not ever. Unless you mug him when he gets home and wrest it from his hands or save it from the bag when he throws the bag away, forget the receipt thingie, it's a piece of paper and Dearly Beloved has a bad relationship with pieces of paper.

So when we got home, I had to go directly upstairs to say goodnight to Douwe, who had sworn a blood oath that he would stay awake until I came home to say goodnight. While I was doing that, Nel (who is a much more hopeful person than I am) went to Paul and asked him for the receipt. He said he did not have it. Closer questioning (Nel is also more persistent than I am)revealed that he did, miracle of miracles, have it. It was forgotten in his shirt pocket, which he had not washed while I was gone.

Good thing I never finished the laundry today.

Nel took it from him immediately. His father apparently had the same relationship with pieces of paper: my mother in law and I are equally dedicated to Never leaving Bits of Paper in the hands of any bearer of the Y chromosome, due to hard experience. ("Tax return? What would you want that for, we know how much we made. I threw it away. Did we need it?" That sort of thing).

And my sister called, which was lovely. Even if I was brain dead and could not think of a thing to say.

So that was my day, how was yours?

Jiggety jig, redux

Well, we are home. We are alive. Beyond that, I can only say I am getting too old for this.

I feel like somebody worked me over with a stick. I keep thinking "Never again".

Which is as you will recall what I said after Douwe was delivered, so that's what my personal vow is worth, lol.

The kids are yelling for me to come down and eat the yummy chinese food they just went and got. Have I mentioned that I hate the chinese available in Holland?

Ugh. Just ugh. I am so too old for this.

The kite

Daan's first tree

Making Auumn boxes with Oma

Fire Department Open House

Daan took one long and careful look at this thing and declined to try it, so he's not in the picture.

The Birthday boy

The Birthday Party

Big Softy

Somebody around here has been grousing and fussing and has most strenuously stated that I am not to be getting all extravagant with the toy buying and spil my children rotten.

And somebody also drove sixty miles in rush hour traffic to buy a certain pair of boys a collection of Yu Gi Oh cards, which they are presently insane for.

But I'm not naming names, oh no.

Big Softy.

And in other news

Daan now demands to go to school every day. He cannot go to school every day, nursery here is two days a week. This week I took him with me to Douwe's school where he will go in January. His future teacher tried to get him to come into the class for a bit.

He said: "No, I am three. I am too small to go to school. I will come in January. In January I will be four".

And that was that.

I would like to know what to get him for St. Nicholas and Christmas. He has asked for a motorcycle, and that's all he wants.

Well, other than whatever any other child has in his or her hand, that is.

This just in

Well, the report is in. Douwe's test result is of an average 6 year old. The report says that he blew the top off of the tests of abstract reasoning, concrete reasoning, and pattern recognition. I mean, he tested at the level of an 8 year old, which is as high as the test goes the way it was administered.

He tested as badly on spatial insight (that's what they call it) as he did well on the other parts -- he tested at a 4 year old level there. So the average of these is 6 years old, and he is therefore an average 6 year old. The gap in scores is noted but is, according to this report, "not significant". (huh?)

In the mean time, we have had his report from his school -- they don't do letter grades, they do this very long report thingie. He is there showing at about a 5 year old level, but they have most strenuously noted that his improvement has been very rapid in the couple of months he has been there. They have....are you ready? Sitting down? They have no behavioral problems with him of any kind. They note that there were some problems in the beginning but that as he has come to trust them the problems have melted away.

Melted away.

I'm so happy I could just wiggle.

The only big problem they now have is that they think he can do more difficult work than he is actually doing (and I am sure of it; he is apparently ignoring all reading/writing related work at school while feverishly demanding to do more and more of it at home. I think he wants to surprise somebody).

The funniest part of his school report is that they have these check box thingies, describing various kinds of behavior and skills. You know, like "takes initiative" and "follows directions" and "runs with scissors". Whatever. Then there are these boxes for "Always" "Sometimes" and "Never".

Every box without exception is checked "sometimes".

Just trying everything out, my kid.

Testing, Testing....

As the final lap in the apparently interminable process of applying for special ed help for Douwe, he had to have a psychological screening. I have been being the Mommy From Hell about this for some months now. The child, I pointed out, has seen more specialists than you can shake a stick at, a veritable alphabet soup of persons with letters-after-the name has been consulted. Not a single one has ever even considered a psych screening worth the trouble.

This, I was firmly given to understand, makes no difference. Must Be Ruled Out. Well, okay, I gave up, threw in the towel, folded. Red tape has, after all, been raised to a fine art in this particular aspect of life, so I conceded. He was referred to an Audiological Center for testing, as they have some experience with administering such tests to children with speech and language disorders. Okay. Yesterday, off he went with his father to be tested.

Where they explained to Paul that they were not going to give him the psych test. He was to have an intelligence test instead.

Excuse me?

Well, you see, it is a non-verbal intelligence test, so it's all okay.

Come again? This rules out psychological factors exactly how?

Paul did not ask any of these questions as he is not, in fact, the Parent From Hell. He is a most agreeable parent, he figured it would do no harm even though he thinks testing IQ in children this age provides no meaningful information.

*shrug*. So they spent three hours checking to see if Douwe can't talk because he isn't bright enough to learn to talk. Or something.

The report has not come in of course. But apparently we may rest assured that Douwe is a person of at least ordinary intelligence and this is not the reason he talks funny. I know you were all very worried about this possibility.

I am waiting on the report, but there is one rather odd note. Apparently Douwe did rather well on the tests of abstract and concrete reasoning. He also did well on the part where he was to complete puzzles. And he apparently bombed most dramatically on the two sections which test spatial awareness. Paul did not know why this puzzled the nice lady who administered the test so much, but I do. There are advantages to having done special ed for a living, one of which is that you learn a lot about testing of various kinds. (There is also a downside, which is that you can become rather cynical about testing).

She was puzzled because this is impossible. A child who did this badly on those two sections of the test simply cannot have done so well on the puzzles section. I am curious to see, when the report comes in, whether the interpretation part tries to address this impossibility.

In any event, Douwe enjoyed the testing and there were for once absolutely no behavior issues muddying the water. He was completely exhausted when he came home and for the rest of the day. All he had to say further was that he would rather go to school today instead of going back there if that was all right.

Hey, mom, he put it on

Now, of course, I can't get him to take it off.

While I was on the phone

With my mother yesterday, Douwe came in to interrupt me several times. Daan did not. So after I hung up I went to investigate his absence. I found him in the bathroom washing his hands. And the counter and the floor and everything else. With three kinds of soap and a very guilty look.

Further examination revealed a red something or other on his fingers which would not come off with soap. And on his face.

Forensic evidence suggested that Daan has acquired the fine motor skills needed to open a bottle of fingernail polish. I asked him if he had it in his mouth and he said, "No, I drank the water. It was icky,". His teeth and tongue were clean but his breath was sort of, I don't know, flowery.

So I went to clean by the bed (which was a lovely shade of Red Coat Red) and found the empty bottle of top coat. Most of which was on the floor, but I believe in forensic evidence. And by this time Daan was admitting to having kidnapped the Lindburgh Baby and denying that he had feet in his efforts to give us the answer we wanted to hear.

Did you know that there is no Poison Control number in Holland? Well, actually there is but it isn't available to the public. So I called the hospital where the man said he had to be brought in so they could look and see if he had actually swallowed the stuff since I was not sure either way. Mostly, he said, children do not actually swallow fingernail polish as it tastes icky. (Uh-huh, that's what Daan said, mister).

I asked what they were planning to look at exactly and got no answer. I mean, you cannot exactly see fingernail polish on an x ray can you? And I suppose acetone would show up on a blood test eventually but by then it might be, er, too late, it seems to me.

So off went Daan to the hospital for scientific testing where they decided they couldn't tell either. And they diagnosed him with being the cutest thing ever, he was apparently flirting with everyine in sight and being generally full of piss and vinegar. Happily, the top coat has not got acetone or any other horribles in it (which the doctor found out by calling poison control, grrr). So they said that even if he had swallowed the whole bottle he ought to be all right, gave him a balloon and sent him home.

General update

I think I am going to just stop mentioning my extended absences. You know I am a slacker, I know I am a slacker, what's the point?

In the time of my absence, I have had strep throat (thank you, Daan my darling, but I could have gone all year without that little gift) which turned into my annual (apparently) sinus infection. I knew you are supposed to be surprised by how much you turn out to be turning into you own mother, but that particular wrinkle I admit I had not expected. I expected to hear myself say "Don't make me come over there", for example. I did not expect to move a couple thousand miles away only to discover that I was horribly allergic to something in my new locale. I am, after all, not allergic to anything. Er, was not allergic...

I don't know what it is; I suspect I may be allergic to dry air since the damn thing kicks in as soon as the heat goes on.

Nel has been having back pain for some time, which she tried to bull her way through for about a week but which finally won out, so she is sort of out of the game just now. It is bad enough that she spent an entire day indoors, which is I believe a first in my experience of living with Nel.

Paul bought a new computer game, which accounts for part of my absence recently, those of you whose spouses are occasionally seized with the need to sit for hours and hours before a computer screen killing digital monsters of various kinds need no further explanation.

And we have had Douwe's birthday of course. Pictures to follow. Some kind person gave him two Yu-Gi-Oh videos, so he is now running around with his two Yu Gi Oh cards (which come in the videos) playing pretend Duel Mosters with a pretend opponent. Sometimes with Daan, who defiantly slaps down any squarish object to mount his apparently blistering counterattacks.

Jozet, tell the truth now

This really was written by your spouse, wasn't it?

Thought so.

Seriously, scroll down and read the whole thing, the Q&A is just hysterical.

The Blitz

The Blitz is warming up over here. You may not have noted it, but it is true that the entire Dutch branch of this family was born in the fall or winter. The Blitz, then, starts with Douwe's birthday in October. We move on to St. Nicholas in November, then Paul's birthday, then Christmas, then Daan's and Nel's birthday* and then Ernests's birthday.

So my children will forever associate gift related holidays with being cold? I dunno. But the former days of having Douwe's birthday party out of doors are, I think, gone forever unless we move again. >shudder<.

This year we are planning a party for Douwe's birthday elsewhere, at a local play place. We have the same problem as last year, to wit: it's a new school and he has not really had time to sort out which kids are which. So he just wants to invite the whole class. Less extravagant heads have prevailed, and we are not inviting the whole class. I think in the end we will probably have about eight or nine kids (but I have invitations for fifteen, lol). The other problem is that his birthday falls during the fall vacation, and I have no idea how many people will be out of town for that.

He wants a Superman costume, which I apparently am going to have to make, as Superman is not really hot here and I cannot find one to buy. He also wants a Batman costume, (and Daan of course immediately declared that he wants Robin) but I think they will have to wait until St. Nicholas (well, there is an upside to all these holidays coming together as well). I expect Batman and Robin will also be going to Carnaval, so I had better remember to make them long sleeved, lol.

In any event, I suppose I am going to have to dust off my costuming and prop skills, warm up the sewing machine, and go to work. That's the nice thing about skills, I suppose, they are ultimately rarely wasted. Anyone with any clever ideas about how to make the "s" on superman's shirt moveable, let me know, that's Douwe's latest idea. He wants a costume where the "s" can come off and be stuck on other t shirts as superpowers may be required in a context not allowing for the whole costume.

God, what a mommy I have become. Next thing you know I will be trying to make cookies with a big red "S" in the middle.


*Well, Nel has no birthday any more, having given it as a gift to Daan when he was born on the same day. Or at least that's her story. The odd part is, Nel's youngest son was also born on his paternal grandmother's birthday. Seems to be a family problem.

Daan would like you to know

He can do anything Douwe can.  Or he thinks he can.

The Best Zoo

The pictures are from the Best zoo. Now, whether it's really the best zoo, I could not say, but it is in Best (which is the name of a town for those not up to punning before your first cup of coffee) and so I suppose they are entitled to the name.

It must be said that the playground at the Best Zoo was its most attractive feature for the children, they were in the zoo part of the park probably an hour but in the playground about three hours. So the pictures are all of the playground, as I figure you have probably seen a camel and a leopard and so on.

Douwe's First Tree

I am firmly instructed to publish this picture forthwith.  And to inform you that this is Douwe in the first tree he ever climbed by himself, with no help of any kind.  Other than Daan cheering him on, that is. 

The Queen's House

Been to the Hague to visit the...

No, you are right, "Been to London" works better.  But I haven't, you know.

Daan took one look at this coach and started squealing about the Queen's pirates.  Had no idea he had been studying Ditch history.  What they don't teach in preschool nowadays.

On the train

Prinsjesdag

On the third Tuesday in September, the Queen gives her State of the Union Address, outlining state policy for the coming year. In Georgia, the most frightening forty days of the year ( the length of a legisslative session) is celebrated by the citizenry locking up their daughters for the duration. In Holland, they go out to wave at the Queen as she rides by in her golden coach to make the speech.

Yes, it's a golden coach, I saw it. I took its picture. There is also a glass coach, but I am unsure whether I saw that.* There were however quite a lot of horses, some of them attached to coaches of various types. Eight of them were attached to the golden coach: I am given to understand that that's how you can tell the Queen is in there. ** If she is not there, it is drawn by six horses. +

We travelled on the train and the tram and the bus, and that was sufficient fun for the boys -- for all of them, we could have turned right back around and gone home and that would have been a Great Day. In fact, we spent probably twice as long in the train and the tram and the bus as we did at the actual event, even counting working our way through the crowd.

Dutch Crowd Behavior is, well, a subject all in itself. Dealing with a Dutch crowd usually involves rather more elbow than I am personally comfortable with. It's just bizzare, how did the residents of the most crowded country in Europe get to be incapable of standing in a line? (Dutch queing goes like this: you stand in line. A dutch guy sort of sidles up in your vicinity and stands sort of roughly next to you. Another one wanders around and works his way in almost but not quite in front. Pretty soon they are all sort of clustered in a gang.)

Why is it so difficult to comprehend that, if you all rush in a body into a train car which just opened, you will wind up pushing the people trying to get off, back on? I think it's the last bastion of their barbarian genes manifesting themselves. It's the only conclusion I can draw. In all other ways the Dutch are mild and rational in manner and even in temperament. In crowds, they just seem to sort of lose their equilibrium and just want to form a pack and go hunting.

After the parade whisked by, we went over to the palace and had a nice cup of coffee. No, just kidding. But both boys declared that this was their intention, after we told them that the building we were going to was the Queen's house. However, they were mollified by a bit of fancy marching in ranks by the palace guard.

I know that I am old now. Because I stood there looking at the palace guard (no fancy ass swords or silly hats here, they carry very businesslike machine guns) and could not stop thinking that at least four of them were far too young to be handling those weapons under any circumstances. They looked hardly old enough to shave to me.

* The glass coach is called that because the carving on the coach is covered in glass. The coach is not, alas, made of glass. The golden coach is also not made of gold I am afraid, though it is gilded wood.

** Well, you can tell she is in there by the hat. Queen Beatrix wears, I have to say, the weirdest hats I have ever seen. She puts the Amen Corner of the local AME Zion to shame, and that's saying something. However, a significant hat correlation is noted by me this year: The ladies attending the big speech in Parliament have taken to also wearing weird hats due to the Queen's known weird hat proclivities. This year, a significant number of them were not wearing hats like the Queen's (which tend to be sort of cakelike and flattish) but were wearing big, floppy ass hats, like Princess Maxima, the daughter in law, wears. Were I a journalist, I would have written a long article speculating that this development signals a switch in loyalties to the next generation as it were. But I am not so I keep all such opinions to myself.

+For a person who has never before actually seen the Royal Progress in the Golden Coach, Nel knows quite a lot about it.

Golden

I have not had anything to say for several days about my offspring. This is because there is nothing to say. They go to school, they come home.

Well, this morning one of them appeared ready to go to school in pajama pants, blue galoshes, a superman t-shirt and a cape. He was persuaded to doff all but the t-shirt as I have had more than enough discussions with school officials about what we should do about my child's extreme weirdness having to do with costuming himself and appearing at school claiming to be various fictional characters.

I mentioned this (not the conversations; the costume) to his teacher today after school. She assumed I talked him out of it because it was too hot for long pants and galoshes and said she hoped he would wear it to school when it cooled off as it would be fun to have superman in the classroom.

I think if we ever move, we will have to commute back to this school, they are so weird they think my kid is normal, lol.

Have I mentioned how much I really like having nothing to say?

It also appears that Daan may be going to the Montessori sooner than expected. They have changed the law dealing with nursery and they are all going to be preschools now, that is, they will be part of the school administration. You are thus supposed to send your child to the preschool associated with the school you will send them to. So he should go to the Montessori preschool.

I decided not to do this, because the new law goes into effect on October 1, and he starts school in January. So he would be changing schools and teachers and little kids in October and then again in January, which made no sense to me. However, we have had a call from the Montessori school suggesting that this may be required -- by the law, not by them. (Unless I just lie and say I have not decided where to send him, which did not apparently occur to anyone as a possibility. I love honest people, not being one).

However, they appear to be simply making a "group 0" which would be added to the present group 1/2 -- same teachers, same classroom. If this is how it works, I don't think it makes any difference whether he starts in October or in January.

Next week there is a meeting we are to go to which will allegedly explain all this and the plan they have to handle it. But I cannot help noting that they have a plan, whereas the folks at nursery he is now going to keep telling me they have no idea how this will work as a practical matter.

I do have a strong preference for people who have a plan, even while I cynically doubt the ability of plans to really pan out. And I always have the option of keeping him home for three months, though I don't think he would like it.

But I also am fully aware that if you are three, a mediocre nursery where you love your teachers and have a good time is better than a great nursery where you don't know anybody. At least for two months (December doesn't really count, vacation and all).

Well, that was easy

I am, in fact, the laziest potty-trainer who ever bore children. I quite understand my deficiency in this area. And training Daan has loomed like a >something really terrible< for some time now. Because along with my general lack of ability or commitment in this regard, you must add the factor that the naked baby technique (the only one that really worked for me last go-round) was not an option. It is, after all, not my sofa he would be peeing on in the event of accident.

However, I decided last week to just grit my teeth and start. He is three and a half, it is well past time. As usual, I did nothing but talk about it a bit.

On Thursday, Daan tried using the toilet at school I hear. He didn't mention it at home.

On Friday, he declared that he would use the potty but wanted to keep the pullups on.

On Saturday, he asked for cloth pants.

It is now Monday. He has had exactly zero accidents.

My heavens, what an accomodating child I have got.

What is the difference between a coyote and a louse?

One howls on the prairie.

Douwe's school requests* that we buy a thing called a luizenzak. This translates directly as a louse bag, and I figured I was mistranslating as nobody would buy a bag to put lice in. Turns out I was translating correctly; it is a sort of drape you hang over the jackets on their little hook to prevent the lice from jumping from one jacket to another while they are hanging on the little row of hooks. Hats are however hung on a different hook entirely and not under the louse bag.**

Huh?

This sort of smacks of wild tales of Victorians putting skirts on piano legs. I think little boys spend most of their day licking one another, at least that is the conclusion I have reached by virtue of the sheer number of runny noses which appear around here abut 4 to 7 days after the start of a new school year. So I cannot really see the utility of a louse bag.

However, Douwe has, as of yesterday, given up Pluk and the hat. He declared yesterday that he is a Super Hero and insists upon wearing his t shirt with the Superman logo on it. Since he went hunting mushrooms with Oma this afternoon after school, he is not wearing the thing tomorrow as it has to be washed.

Well, I cannot really complain can I? If they can convince him that he is super as opposed to homeless, then I guess I can cough up the couple euros for a completely useless (it seems to me) louse bag.

Maybe he can use it for a cape.

They also read the Dutch version of "The Rainbow Fish", a book of which I heartily disapprove. Though it is enormously popular.

For those of you who have missed this phenomenon, it is about a lovely fish with a lot of shiny scales. The other fish in the neighborhood envy and covet his scales. They then conduct a panhandling campaign to get Rainbow Fish to give up his scales -- to them, of course. Eventually, the other fish form up into a gang to force him to give up his scales. Thus follows a little public shunning culminating in the social ostracization of Rainbow Fish. Ultimately, under pressure from the octopus who strings together a couple of cliches about how you have to give up what you have to be truly happy+, Rainbow Fish succumbs and gives up all of his wealth, er, individual uniqueness, er, scales, one to each of the others. So now they all look like crap, but they do have a bit of formerly shiny dead scale to carry around, and at least the competition has been decimated. So everyone is now truly happy.

Let's see, there's a lesson for you: you have to give people things for them to like you. Here's another: You have to change yourself to be just like everybody else for other people to like you.

Okay, this is probably not the way it is described in the official review from the publisher.

Anyway, that these things are mostly true in real life does not mean I think it's a really good way to start with kindergarteners. I'll stick with "The Grumpy Ladybug", thanks, at least in that one the other bugs threaten to kick the offending society member's butt.

However, I suppose I shall refrain from explaining the moral bankruptcy of a children's classic to my kid's teacher in the first week. They already think I am a little touched. I cannot imagine why.

Besides, he made a little collage of a fish with one shiny scale and it is hanging on the wall with all the other collages made by all the other kids. So I guess I will refrain from explaining its moral bankruptcy to him, too.

*please read, would require you to buy if it were legal but it is not so instead relies upon the time-tested methods of social control and peer pressure.

** I know this becasue the child has been going to school as Pluk -- remember Pluk? Pluk is the fictional little boy Douwe has, er, had taken into his heart as his new avatar. Pluk wears a red baseball cap which I am sure everyone in Atlanta remembers, um, fondly as he refused to take it off for the pictures. He takes it off for school, though, and hangs it on the un-louse bagged peg.

+ I am aware that Jesus said something like this, too. But I think he said you were supposed to give up your possessions, not your physical attributes. It doesn't say "If thine eye offend the other fish, pluck it out," after all.

Tweedle Deedle Dumpling

My son Daan/Mopped the floor with his trousers on/One shoe off and one shoe on/Tweedle Deedle Dumpling my son Daan.

I did however change his socks before he went to school this afternoon smelling of floor cleaner, lol.

Ugh

I just remembered why I don't like school time and it has to do with my alarm clock going off at an obscenely early hour every day. Which is why I have not been especially profound recently.

Also why I got into the habit of frumpiness, it takes precious seconds to check if your clothes match and your socks have no holes in them, seconds which I could more profitably spend blissfully snoring.

What am I doing living somewhere I have to wear socks in August, anyway?

Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?

I went to the eye doctor today. It appears that my vision has, for the first time in my life that I can recall, improved.

Or that my contacts have been too strong for about a year, hard to tell.

I went because I was having trouble seeing small print near my eyes. To be specific, I couldn't read the card in Trivial Pursuit without holding it at arm's length. I thought it was time to be nearsighted and farsighted at the same time which meant reading glasses or bifocals. Many eye doctors have promised that this is in my future. *

After much testing and being sent from one person to another, it appears that my prescription of -7.5 was too strong. I wear a -6.75 apparently.

The doc (whom I ended up with after apparently puzzling several opticians and their automated instruments) He asked me if it was usually in the evening, and I agreed that it was always in the evening. He says that's because my poor little eyes have been working very hard all day to focus and in the evening they are just slap worn out. Or some such a thing. I can indeed read tiny print close up, he gave me a card to be sure.

He gave me a pair of the new ones to try for a couple of weeks to see how they work in different light and so on and sent me on my way.

If I live long enough do you think I'll get to 20/20?

*Of course many eye doctors have also promised that I would be entirely blind in short order, so what the hell do they know?

Help

I found myself in a perfume store today unable to decide between Cool Water and Echo.

Help, I think I'm going down for the third time. Somebody call Gloria Steinem on the emergency phone.

I want you all to know that I think all of this is purely opressive and intended to distract women en masse from important matters by causing them to think that it matters whether they buy Cool Water or Echo.

Or that by doing so they are making some kind of statement about their person- hood.

Or that by doing so they will be magically altered from thir real boring selves to some kind of delicious and exotic creature.

Fuck that, I am already a delicious and exotic creature and do not require the house of Davidoff to be it.

So whadda ya think, Cool Water or Echo?

Splash. Splash.

Happy Dance

I still habitually think of Douwe as starting kindie, even though they don't have kindie here. They have group one and two, which are the rough equivalent of prek and k in the same classroom.

Play school is optional and is generally 2 half days a week from about age 2 until your 4th birthday, whereupon they have a big party and pack you off to group one, whenever your birthday might be. It seems to me it must be a very abrupt transition, from 2 half days a week to 5 full days. However, I am told that this is handled by the fact that children are not required to go to school until they are 5. So in that in between year, parents can send them as often or as seldom as they like.

I was all set to send Daan to the play school associated with the Montessori, as he is already registered to start there in January when he turns 4. Then it occcurred to me (duh) that this meant a new school and new teachers and new kids for September to December, then another new school in January, which seems to me rather a lot of school change. So now I have 2 kids in 2 school in opposite directions in a car free kind of culture. So we bought one of those carts that hangs on the back of the bike, which the kids think is the coolest thing ever. I suppose I will get good legs out of it and become a truly Hot Mama for the first time in my life. But don't hold your breath.

Daan was overjoyed to go back to school, though he walked around with the eyes-as-big-as saucers thing for about five minutes, until his teacher noticed this and got out the toy cars and the racetrack carpet. The it was "so long mom, I'm busy, see you later". This is why he loves her, she knows just what to do and does it sort of unobtrusively. It is also one of the reasons I kept him there for the duration.

Daan is rather sad that Rowan and Max are not there, they turned 4 over the summer and went on to group one. He has asked me to invite Rowan in particular over to play. If I can find his mother, I suppose I will, I like Rowan, too. Rowan is a real boy, a bouncer, so this will require either an outdoor venue or putting up all the breakable objects.

ANd speaking of holding your breath, Douwe cleared the first day hurdle without clipping the fence. According to his teacher he pretty much did what all the other kids did, anyway, and she didn't have any problems. She has no idea she just witnessed a miracle.

However, here's the big news (which is very small news indeed, so I count on your indulgence of my momminess, lol). Douwe has been for an entire year highly resistant to drawing and writing. He made about 10 drawings the entire year last school year, despite much (really very much. quite a lot really) effort on the part of his teachers. He made tiny little marks on the paper and then tore them up.

This made no sense to me, as I have literally boxes of his drawings from school in the Ststes prior to the age of 4, and he has been able to write his name for nearly 2 years now. But there you are.

So yesterday his teacher said to me, "I thought you said he didn't like to draw?" and showed me the drawing he made. At drawing time, with the other kids apparently. Okay, it was not a Picasso; Sort of a Mondrian really, with red crossed lines on white paper. But then he came home and just before dinner got out the paints himself and sat down at the kitchen table and painted a picture of Oma. With a head and ears and hair and socks and shoes and the whole shebang. Then he made a picture of himself with "Douwe" written underneath. While I stood around and pretended this was a completely ordinary thing for him to do.

The picture of himself has a great big smile, which takes up two thirds of the paper and goes right off his face. So I'd say it is going well thus far.

Ancient Chinese Secret

As some of you know, my anxiety levels are peaking about back to school, as another year like last one with Douwe and I am going to pack it in and home school the child and then go to jail probably because homeschooling is very far beyond not approved of here.

While of course pretending not to be at all concerned about the subject in order to slide under the finely tuned Mommy Radar possessed by my children.

So because I am an eminently sensible and stable person I of course consulted the I Ching on the matter and here is what it said:

The problems are from within. You need a change of attitude regarding those around you. Avoid suffering through altruistic behavior. To cultivate yourself, you must contemplate from a broader prospective. Narrow and superficial views do not generate a person of public responsibility.

Okay, which one of you has tampered with my yarrow sticks for crying out loud?

Did I miss something or is this a very fancy and suitably enigmatic way of saying, "get over yourself"?

Back to School

It must be time to go back to school, because kermis is in town. I would say the carnival, because that's what it is, but then since we also have Carnaval just before Lent, I wouldn't want to confuse anybody. But anyway, this is the summer travelling carnival which is in many ways the same all over the western world. Tilt-a-whirls and knock down the cans and cotton candy and throw the ball through the hoop and merry go rounds and a fun house and so on. It began Friday at 7 pm and goes on until Wednesday.

It is always, I am told, the weekend before and the first week of school in this town. That's how you know it is time to go to school in these parts, kermis is in town. There are worse ways, I imagine. I have it on good authority that people save money the entire year for kermis, sort of like a Christmas Club account. Which would be sensible, as you find that a lot of money goes out in "6 rides for 3 euros" repeated for every ride you pass. Oh, well, Kerstmis, whoops, sorry, Kermis comes but once a year.

Kermis is set up right through the center of town, not on its outskirts which is the setup I am more familiar with in the States. If you need a loaf of bread after 2 pm, your shopping trip is enhanced by the music of the carousel and the squeals of little children trying to grab the bouncing ball. The ball is suspended over a moving ride on a pulley which is bounced around by the carnival workers -- if you grab the ball and hold it you win another ride for free. The Dutch version of the brass ring, I think. The workers are very good at preventing the same child getting it more than once.

The hip tweens and early teens spend all their time in the fun house -- in fact, you can buy a card which gets you unlimited entree for 5 hours at a time and most of them have one. The bad boys and girls, the ones in the denimn jackets and multiple piercings who tell their parents they are going "out" (oh, how I longed to do that as a teen; no chance I am afraid, I think my mother would have pulled me back into the house by my long and silky hair had I tried it) spend all their time working out their adolescent angst on the bumper cars. Luckily for my own offspring, who have not yet attained that age or attitude, there is a seperate bumper cars ride for little kids.

There is no Tunnel of Love, unless you count the benches outside the bumper cars, lol. There are indeed very few sedate rides of any kind; this kermis runs heavily to the "stuff that spins around and goes upside down very fast while making lots of noise" kind of ride. Many rides have a musical sound track, and the people who work the rides can slow them down or speed them up and often do so in synchronization with the music, which is a new experience for me.

A week ago at a fair in a nearby town, my elder child had to work up the courage to go on an attraction where you jump on a trampoline with bungee cords attached to a belt at your waist which enables you to jump very high and turn flips and so on. By the end of today there were no further misty eyed mommy moments watching him work up his courage I am afraid. He is now all in and gung ho for all things which go very fast in circles and bounce a lot -- the approximate turning point is in the photo above, actually.

By the end of that ride, Nel was terrified, Paul was terrified (becasue it turns out Douwe is barely over the weight limit for the ride and so kept sort of tending upward with the centrifugal force, a fact I am very glad I did not know while watching the ride), and Douwe was game for the next "spin me around until I nearly barf" ride. I shall have to save my tristesse for Daan, who wants to go on the barf rides but is not nearly heavy enough to keep him in the seat. He did, however, enjoy the haunted house ride which sent Douwe bolting for the exit -- which Daan pointed out repeatedly.

My, that sibling thing starts early, does it not?

They went in the Hall of Mirrors with their father yesterday, which is a sort of mirror maze with one way glass so that onlookers can stand outside and watch you be hopelessly lost. This is good, becasue Nel took them in today, and well, Nel's sense of direction is indeed better than my lost-in-a-paper-bag one, but not by much. So they went in in this order: Nel, Daan, Douwe. They came out in this order: Douwe, Daan, Nel.

And I even made the ultimate sacrifice and went on one of the make-you-barf rides with Douwe. Which is how I knew they coordinate with the music. I got to be spun around and raised up and down and otherwise moved around at high rates of speed in three dimensions to the sound of dance music today and all I have to say is this: he enjoyed it very much, but I should have held off on eating until afterwards.

Resembling a female person

I have bought shoes. I have bought pants, which pants have flared bottoms and this beady shit all over the right lower leg from knee to ankle. Which makes them very difficult to sit in, as I always sit with my right leg curled up under me. * So I can't do that in them and have to sit like an adult person. And a shirt with a hood (in Dutch it is a capuchon, which is much more hip, don't you think?) and even a denimn jacket which is very closely fitted and has lapels out to there and very long french cuffs and really cries out to be worn over a really fluffy skirt, maybe even a petticoat if I can find one. I replaced my makeup, all of which was older than my eldest child. I even painted my freaking nails, and not a french manicure but a frosted dark rose color. And I took Nel with me shopping, which means none of it cost that much (Nel has a terrible allergy to paying retail and will go to almost any lengths to avoid it).

It's all hip, and it's mostly colorful. Not through any fault of mine but because I now wear a girls' size in clothing and they do not apparently make girls' clothes in frumpy. At least not where Nel shops. Alas.

I suppose, after about six years, it is high time I began to resemble a female person in some way. I may even actually wear the shirt my sister gave me, though it has a neckline with goes right down to my navel and not, let's face it, very much else. And I have no, er, line to put in it. Which brought Nel to the subject of my undergarments which are a scandal I am given to understand except for one dark blue set (thank you, sister #3 ) and one purple set (thank you, sister # 1).

To prevent my sisters' bursting out with tell-all stories of my unrelieved frumpiness, may I just say that I was never a clothes horse, okay? I miss uniforms, to tell you the truth, at least all I had to worry about was whether they were clean. I enjoyed the uniform aspect of being a lawyer. (The good news is, tailored in in this fall, so I get to wear all my suit jackets again, lol). However, even I must admit that beginning with the cycle of preganant, nursing, pregnant, nursing, chasing Very Dirty Boys I have exceeded even myself in frumpiness.

I am unrelievedly lazy in matters of appearance. No matter what I do, I shall never hold a tiny candle to the roaring bonfires that are my lovely sisters, so I have thus far settled for Cleans Up Nicely. ** Well, I do clean up nicely. I am presentable, I rarely actually embarrass anyone. But you know, I mostly Just Don't Care.

However, I just want to say to my Very Fashionable Sisters (and you know who you are) that I have for the past six days actually worn at least one completely pointless accessory item every single day (apart from my wedding ring, I mean). Sometimes even more than one. I even tied a bloody scarf around my neck which irritated me no end but did look very nice, so I did not impatiently yank it off and stick it in my pocket after 20 minutes as usual, lol. And I have worn at least some form of entirely purposeless artificial pigmentation on my face every single day as well. ***

So there. I shall next go out and buy a pair of purple suede boots with fringe on them and revive the Stevie Nicks look. Oh, maybe not, I am really too short to pull off all that hangly dangly stuff. And also too impatient.

* Because I am too short for a regular size chair and my feet do not reach the ground in them, which problem was not improved by moving to the Land of the Giants, that's why.

**I trust you ladies will remember this comment come Christmas.

*** And to my worry wart father I would like to add that this was in addition to the sunscreen, which I really do actually wear due to our shared genetic legacy of a certain absence of natural pigmentation, lol

The camera

I am pleased to report that the camera was found and was not at the bottom of the harbor despite certain dire predictions. It was found still ensconced in its waterproof and childproof bag (which was in another incarnation the insulated bag they gave me at the hospital to carry expressed breast milk around in, it makes an ideal camera bag) in, as The Much Beloved said, "the last, the very last place I looked,".

Well, duh. That's where everything is.

Pech

"Pech" is an excellent Dutch word, it has a satisfying sound when you say it. It means, oh, something like "bad luck". Not deadful, looming bad luck but really annoying bad luck. Like the blade on the boat breaking plus the repair guy being on vacation, which together mean we do not get to have the vacation we wanted to have. At least not when we wanted to have it. Or like this: you go out on the bike to get bread. Because it is only two minutes away you carry an open, canvas bag to put the bread in. Just as you step out of the store, the heavens open and it begins to pour buckets. * That sort of thing.

Or perhaps you have left your camera on the boat when you are going to the Breda balloon fiesta and thus will just have to remember what it looked like. And your darling husband went to get it but it is not, he assures you, there and is lost forever and probably Daan threw it off the side right after the flag. Which you find hard to believe, he wasn't gone long enough to have looked in the whole boat and you could have stuck it nearly anywhere to keep it safe.

Hopefully you, er, I did not stick it anywhere really clever or the kids'll be graduating high school before I find the stupid thing again.

*ahem*

The festival was fun, even though owing to rain there was not a balloon in sight. Well, there was one lying on its side on the ground which was for people to go into and look around. Lucky for us we were amoung the first in, as we were thereafter chased out and the attraction was closed -- too much wind making it hard to keep the thing in place.

But it was fun, sort of a very small town carnival thingie, with moon walks and ball pits and really crappy food. Dutch snack food when it is not fried involves Coca cola served warm and hot dogs served cold -- I always want to yell "Why do you think they call them HOT dogs, you moron?" but I have not yet done so. Ugly American and all. Trying not to let down the Side.

And furthermore they serve hot dogs (when bread is incuded at all, some places you are treated to a room temperature hot dog wrapped in a napkin and otherwise naked) on french bread rolls, which is really a violation of the laws of nature.

In any event, without going into it, it has been a week which has caused me to wonder whether Mercury is not going retrograde -- when traditionally messages go astray, things get lost, and the poltergeists are generally on the rampage. In other woods, Pech. Just Pech.

If it does not get better I am going to have to resort to drawing a picture of the black cloud plaguing me on a piece of paper and mailing it to a fictitious address. Well, or a real one, if any of you really piss me off this week, lol.

*This actually happened, on the same day we had to come home from vacation (which is why there was no bread in the house). I actually started laughing, as the whole day was beginning to resemble a bad movie.

The Breda Balloon Fiesta

The Breda Balloon Fiesta is this weekend. We will probably go, since we will not be sailing. Somehow this event has made me realize: I have been here for a whole year.

This makes no sense, I have been here for fourteen months. But we went to the Breda Balloon Festival last year. And now here it is again. I have no idea whay this seems so significant all at once. But there you are; the Breda Balloon Festival as a marker of time.

Anybody miss me?

No, I don't expect you did, as I was staying with most of you, my Teeming Dozen, much of the time I was not blogging. Well.

We had planned to go sailing immediately upon our return, except that the weather was filthy. Really disgusting, rain and hail and god knows what all. So we sat around until Tuesday when I pointed out to Dearly Beloved that we were stuck inside when it rained anyway, so we might as well be stuck in a boat as in a house. So off we went, flags gaily waving -- er, well, actually not gaily waving as Daan decided to check out the consistency of a couple rules of physics and threw our flag over board in the harbor right before we left. The Belgian who was moored right next to us helped us in our attempts to drag the harbor for it, but he found it just awfully funny and offered to loan us his extra (Belgian) one. Dearly Beloved was not especially amused and was even less amused when I offered to put up an American flag.

However, we steamed off in good order, even though the boat was unaccountable difficult to handle and made quite a lot of racket, even for a diesel motor. So we stopped in the lovely Biesbos, a forest preserve, and checked the motor over. It was working fine and we began to think it was some kind of timing problem.

"Timing problem" is Dearly Beloved's code way of saying "I have no idea". In the South where I grew up, the code phrase is "It's yer lankidge'" or at least it was when I had a series of junkers. It was always my linkage, no matter what it actually was.

So I stepped into the boat to get some more coffee. Please note for future reference: do not step into a boat when your husband has removed the ladder in order to get at the motor which is in the middle of the boat. It hurts quite a lot when your foot discovers there is no ladder there and it leads to your small children remembering words they have not heard since you had to move continents in less than three weeks about a year ago. It also leaves a bloody scrape and beautiful technicolor bruises. And causes your husband to say things like, "but I thought you knew I moved it, I was looking at the motor after all,".

After the blue streak in the air cleared from my multilingual swearing session and first aid was administered to the dying, Paul decided to go into the water and see if it could be the aforementioned flag, which might have fouled the motor blades. Please note, the water in Holland is very, very cold just now, so this was a very brave thing to do. He came immediately back up, only a trifle blue, and announced that he was now certain that the motor was fine.

Because one of the blades on the motor was missing. By this time it was already afternoon, so we decided to just stay there until morning. No sense in running home, the repair place would be closed anyway. So we played many rounds of snakes & ladders and walked around in the woods and killd pirates and picked many flowers and so on. Even the wildflowers in Holland are civilized, all the purple ones grow together and the yellow ones and so on. We ate a lot of blackberries and Daan had another practical lesson in why you do not try to pick a nettle. I swear, he will never learn. Hard headed, that child.

Then we went home to find that the boat cannot be repaired until Monday, as the repair guy is on vacation until then. So we may be going to the Breda Balloon Festival this weekend after all.

Busy, busy, busy

On Saturday, we went to an air force base nearby for their, er, open house. Well, that's what they call it. Okay, it translates exactly as "open days" but that makes no sense at all, translated. Thus: the Royal Dutch Air Force Open House.

Douwe and Daan had enough fun looking up at the planes and helicopters while standing in the parking lot nearby to last them a month; however, we drove there, might as well go in.

They had, I must say, several really excellently planned aspects of crowd control; and at least one very badly planned one. There was a lot of water everywhere, whch was good. There were a lot of first aid units available for people who did not drink the aforementioned and then walked several kilometers on an air force base in the beating hot sun where there is 1) absolutely no air conditioning; and 2) no shade anywhere except in the hangars which strongly resemble really big ovens. (The kids were thrilled each time -- "Look mom, an ambulance!" I think they thought it was part of the show.) * They had people in what I believe were marine uniforms stationed at the entrance with -- of all things-- huge bottles of sunscreen which they glopped into the hand of every person associated with a child and instructed them firmly to put it on the child. There is something to be said for having a really large uniformed person around to dispense the suncreen. I got Absolutely No backtalk about the sunscreen from my sons. Which is unusual. Maybe I should hire a retired marine to come round when we are going out.

Hey, Ernest was Air Force, now that I think of it. I wonder if his uniform still fits. Hmmm.

And they had these little (actually, they were pretty big) stickers which were put on the front or back of every child (depending on the tendency of the wearer to pull it off and throw it away) with the child's first name and the mobile number of the associated adult, which I thought was clever.

Yes, actually, both my kids had them on their backs between the shoulder blades, why do you ask?

Douwe looked at all the exhibits (which were in the hangars) but the only one that really captured his attention was -- are you ready for this? -- the display by the people who do forensics on crashes and other aviation mishaps. Well, the video of exploding helicopters and midair airplane collisions and various airborne vehicles suddenly becoming little balls of flame no doubt had something to do with it. However, he asked me what those people in the video were doing, so I told him they were trying to find out why the crash happened, and they could tell by looking at the pieces (the display thoughtfully included a lot of various pieces of formerly airborne machinery in various states of investigation). He asked how that could be. So we went through the displayed bits and pieces and I talked about them. He said, "It's a puzzle,". I agreed it was like a really big puzzle.

So for a short time he decided that he did not want to be a pilot, he wanted to do puzzles when he grew up. Though after Ernest took him in the F-16 flight simulator, he was back to being a pilot.

Daan enjoyed the mock Battle of Britain quite well, and disliked the F-16s because they make too much noise. He wanted to know what the bombs were, because they were not fireworks, and I told him that sometimes you just need to blow something up, and when you do, then you use a bomb. This seemed to satisfy him, though it did earn me rather a lot of bombing in the tub since then.

The Apache Helicopter stunt team (which has a real name and is a fighting unit, but I cannot remember it now) is really amazing and they left the rest in the shade. The formation flying in the jets and the stunt flying was pretty cool; but what can I tell you, it wasn't the Blue Angels. (lol) .

Today I got to do my penace for not paying attention to the sun; I put on sunscreen, but only once all day. My kids, well, I was very busy greasing them up, so they are just fine. I however, am a lovely red on my arms and, since it's Father's Day, we went sailing. So I got to spend a 90 degree day with long sleeves on to cover my already burnt arms.

I'll remember the sunscreen next time.

*Apropos, I would like to point out that my children were wearing sweaters to school this past week. Then it was 30 degrees this weekend, which works out in the 90s if I am doing the math properly. Next week: snow. Kidding.

This picture has not ben rotated

The damned thing really can fly upside down.  It is a very strange thing to see a helicopter fly upside down.

The Prodigal

Last week, I sent some email to some folks stateside and suggested that I had some free time should they have anything they would like for me to do. I should have known better.

Ernest, who goes where the wild goose goes, has at least for the moment had enough of migration and has come home from Brazil. Just before he left for Brazil, he sold his apartment. He did not buy another one, because he was after all going to Brazil. So the wild goose is apparently nesting for some period of time right here in Brabant. In this very house, in fact. In the room which used to be the room where the computer is.

Since the only time I have to work without sixty million interruptions from my offspring is in fact between 10 pm and 2 am, this was on that front a touch awkward. erahem.

We have no network at home despite having a gracious plenty of computers and the only DSL hookup is in that room. A network is of course the obvious solution; however, this would require some effort from Dearly Beloved who is at this moment after all working two jobs and is not especially in the mood for domestic requests. And anyway despite being a real wizard at it, he hates, hates, hates doing all things related to networks.

The obvious place for the computer was in fact on the other side of the wall with the DSL hookup. Unhappily, that space was occupied by Daan's bed. The obvious place to move Daan's bed was next to the cabinet with the kids' clothes; unhapily this space was occupied by a large empty fish tank big enough for Douwe and Daan to lie down in together (please do not ask me how I am certain of this). And though I have not studied physics in any depth, I am nevertheless familiar with the notion about two objects and the same space at the same time. I am also familiar with the Doctrine of the Small Female Person, to wit: when you need something large moved, mention it in a helpless way to the nearest large bearer of the Y chromosome, then go make tea or something.

Did I mention that Dearly Beloved is presently working two jobs, just finished completely redoing the cellar, and is Not In The Mood for.... surely I did.

Well, the problem was solved quite handily when I brought to Ernests' attention that I really needed to work but could not and added the bonus that if the computer were not in that room, I would not need to be tracking in and out of there several times a day.

So Ernest moved the DSL line and the computer and the fish tank (which is now on its side on the roof and has miraculously transformed into my new cold frame, hot damn can't wait for Fall lettuce) and Daan's bed. Which was very nice of him.

Now I have to go to the Ikea and buy chests of drawers for the kids and move all the book shelves and.... why? Because once you start making changes, it's like rabbits in a warm hutch, they just start multiplying. Hope I can get it all done before July. Oh, yeah, and my work, too.

erahem.

Just another meme

A bow to Jozet, who tagged me on this one.

1. Estimate the total number of books you've owned in your life.

Oh. My. God. Do I have to count the collections of Golden Age Science Fiction and of Erotica which I sold after I got out of college and just before law school respectively because I needed the money? The dirty books made me more money than the science fiction, it must be said.

Do I count jointly owned books? All my children's books were jointly owned and all my books now are jointly owned. My children now own a fair number of my children's books, come to think of it.

And all the books I trashed reading them in the tub and writing in the margins? And the ones I bought and then returned to the Book Nook a week later to trade in on new ones? Do I count the ones I never read or started and tossed?

The stripped copies I used to get by the box from my pals who worked at the bookstore?

In my life? Oh dear.

I have been alive and literate, let's see, on the order of 2 thousand weeks as I figure it.

I want to say a million, since the number of books I have owned seems to me to rival the number of stars in the sky or grains of sand on a beach. Why I have not had to build a whole new house to accommodate them I have no idea. I surely could build a house out of them, should the End Times be closer than we had thought.

But realistically, I would call it about 20,000.

2. What's the last book you bought?

For myself? Or for anybody?

For myself, I recently bought "Q" which is pretty good but slow going; and "The Birth of Venus" which is a nice historical fiction bit of fluff. I also stole a biography of Rasputin from my father when we were in the States.

I bought "The Visitor" and "The DaVinci Code" for Dearly Beloved, the latter because he wanted to read it in English.

Okay, I did not buy "the DaVinci Code", I stole it from my mother. Er, I mean, I mistakenly put it in my suitcase and was aghast to discover it when we got back to Holland, yeah.

Well, I am bringing it back in July, geez.

3. What's the last book you read?

I am now rereading the Rasputin biography and last night I reread the Mists of Avalon becasue I was not up to any nonfiction. I do a lot of rereading these days, as my options for English language books are limited.

4. List 5 books that mean a lot to you.

They all do, I am a reading Don Juan, eternally in love with whatever I am reading at the moment. (Well, as long as we are on the subject of erotica, I suppose a reading Juliette, as I am not seducer but seduced....).

I enjoy reading the side of a box of cornflakes as much as the most scintillating prose, though the cornflakes rarely give me anything to talk about afterwards so I rarely mention them. But I found out which ones I really wanted to keep when we moved and I had to get rid of a lot of stuff. That's when you find out what you cannot live without -- when you have to pay to have it shipped halfway around the world.

1) My OED. I am still limping along with the two volume condensed and will someday own the edition which takes up an entire bookshelf -- is it 12 volumes now? But I love my OED and its little magnifying glass. I also love my Yale Shakespeare especially since I got it at the Book Nook for nearly nothing.

2) My copy of "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". I love Uncle Bob, even if he only has three male characters and two female characters which he recycles endlessly. And the female characters all have huge tits (except one) and are eternally beautiful and have IQs over 200 and are improbably even tempered and submissive. I don't care, I love Uncle Bob anyway.

3) All my Ted Sturgeon. I don't care if he's not fashionable.

4) "The Cornucopia" a collection of recepts and cooking lore from 1390 to 1899.

5) "The Phantom Toolbooth" and "Three Men in a Boat" come in as a tie for fifth.

My spouse could no doubt add to this list should he read it, he probably remembers which books I agonized over and which ones I tossed without a qualm better than I do. I generally block out traumatic experiences.

6. Tag 5 people!

Sorry, Joze, I don't pass on forwards, I am the end station of all chain letters, electronic and otherwise, and I don't tag people for memes.

Though I would pay large sums to find out sue's answers to these, and actually also my spouse's answers -- but he doesn't even have a blog.

School Pictures

Below you will see Daan's school pictures. There is also a class photo but I cannot get it to scan properly -- imagine a regular preschol class photo with all the kids and teachers, don't they all look pretty much the same? Daan is very clearly saying "cheese" in that one.

In any event, let me know which ones you want and in what sizes, those of you related to me, I have to order by Monday.

Number 3

Number 2

Number one

Bilingual Marginalia

I now know why Douwe often answers the question "How are you?" with the name of the person speaking to him; and often answers "How was school?" with the name of his teacher that day or the names of the children who were there or sometimes the names of the children who were not there.

It has bothered me a bit now and again, it seems so odd for him to answer a completely different question. I have chalked it up to the language disorder. Well, It was a problem with auditory processing, I think. But, um, somebody else's.

In Dutch, the question is, "Hoe is het met jouw?" (How is it with you) or "Hoe was het op school?". (How was it at school). The first word is pronounced "Hoo".

Did you get it yet? I didn't, for a very long time.

Today he was pretending to talk on the phone with his father. I asked him in Dutch "How is it with your father?"

He said in english, "No one, but he wants me to come,".

So I asked him what he meant. He said, "No on eis with papa, so he wants me,".

Ah. He hears the English word which is pronounced the same way when we ask that question: "Who is it with Papa?". "Who is it with you?" "Who was it at school?"

How did I miss that for so long?

Another one?

No, mom, I have a ten year IUD for which choice (which I made at the age of 37) I was the butt of much teasing amoung my friends, remember? It was an easy choice, actually. Considering both my mother and my grandmother had more than 2 decade age spreads between their oldest and youngest children; and that neither started having children especially early; and that neither had the benefit of fertility drugs, well. I can do simple math. So, no, not another child.

Would you believe another bird?

You know, my spouse does not even look like St. Francis af Assisi and probably could not tell a statue of St. Francis from a Bologna sandwich. Though he can almost certainly find either Assisi or Bologna on a map as he is very good at geography He is also apparently very good at finding lost little birds.

It isn't fair; he wasn't the little boy who brought home various waifs and strays and nursed them back to health. That was Ernest. Dearly Beloved was the little boy with the dead lizard in his pocket because he stuck it in there and forgot all about it until washday. So what's up with the birds?

The latest addition to our little pensione is a very young jackdaw which is, for those of you in the South, very much like a crow or a magpie. It is in short the anti Noah (Noah being the dove he nursed back to health and released last year). A jackdaw is black with a grey head. They eat, it turns out, primarily meat. It certainly has a beak for eating meat -- one of the websites I was looking at warns that they like shiny things and that you should be careful about your eyes for this reason, woo hoo.

The children have named it Grijsje, which means little grey in Dutch. Well, it's the grey equivalent of naming it Blackie -- Grey-ey doesn't flow right off the fingers or the tongue, does it? Paul wants to call it Loki for the Norse god of chaos. He is aware, as it is sort of a hobby of his, that it was actually Odin who had the two ravens. But he points out that they had really impronounceable names, even for a Dutch person. Apparently Mozart had a pet jackdaw and Paul will settle for naming his bird whatever Mozart named his, if I can find out what it was.

The bird has expressed no opinion.

Did I mention upon whom it has devolved to find out what this thing is supposed to eat and feed it and clean its cage and make sure it is regularly handled and cared for and so on?

Grumble, grumble. I after all have nothing else I need to do.

Busseldag

Today is Bussel-day. Didn't you see it in your calendar?

The Bussel, you see, is the name of a community theater here in town. And Douwe's school is putting on its annual school play. Douwe's class, it appears, will be playing the kabouters, which are gnomes. They are to sing a little song, which Douwe has practiced so often that Daan knows it, too. They are apparently to tumble around at the feet of some other people at some point, as he has been practicing that, also.

Beyond what he does at home, I have no real idea what the play is about or what the kids are supposed to do as this has not been vouchsafed to the parents. We are to be surprised it seems. He is supposed to wear blue jeans, which annoys him very much as kabouters do not wear blue jeans. I have been instructed to put him in the blue jeans over lunch; his teacher has apparently been made aware of his annoyance. Unhappily, I have no idea why the kabouters have to wear blue jeans so I canot explain it. This will make costuming more difficult.

Oh, and after that they will apparently go offstage and be attacked by a large dragon which Douwe will try to fend off long enough for them all to get into the hot air balloon which will evidently be waiting and they will all fly away. But he is not at all sure that he will be able to manage it and it is possible the dragon will eat one or two of them. (Yes, I do think he made that part up, actually.)

Given the imagery of his imaginings, I do hope that this play does not feature a certain dragon slayer's terrified bolting from the stage. We shall see.

Here is my birthday present

This is the view from my window. Immediately to the right and outside the frame is a door which opens onto the roof.

And these are my other birthday presents

And this is the reason

That I have not put a table and chairs up there, and there is a really very sound deadbolt lock with a key on the door. Which key is hidden in an entirely different room. That is, this is the view of Nel's lovely garden from my lovely garden. Please note the complete absence of any kind of barrier preventing small boys from dropping from one to the other, inadvertently or otherwise.

*shudder* It will remain a garden of my own for as long as I can manage, or at least until they are old enough to shinny down the drain pipe.

Happy Birthday

Did you know that my beautiful sister shares a birthday with John Wayne and Lenny Kravitz and Hank Williams, Junior? But she is far too young to know who Lenny Kravitz is and is now opening a new window and Googling it.

Her horoscope for today is: Opportunities for friendship, pleasant associations, and enjoyable social interactions occur now. Personal relationships are harmonious and rewarding. Also, financial transactions go smoothly for you and material benefits are possible at this time.

This is the horoscope for Cancer. I know she is technically a Gemini, but due to an unfortunately timed golf tournament she is unquestionably a Cancer despite having been yanked into the world most rudely and too soon.

If she wants to know what her horoscope is not (that is the one for Gemini) she can look it up herself; I know the real deal. I am, after all, and will always be her Big Sister. And if your Big Sister doesn't tell you where it's at, who will?

Happy Birthday, Sistah Thang.

Obscurity

It occurred to me recently that nearly everything I know something about or find interesting is obsscure as hell. I suppose I ought to have noticed this sooner. But I didn't so here we are.

Since one of the obscure things I know something about is secret codes and so on, I also know that there is a principle called security by obscurity which is the opposite of full disclosure. The idea is that the exploitable weaknesses in your system ought also to be hidden; part of your code can be the fact that nobody knows where the message is irrespective of where the key is. Perhaps I should found a school of psychology on the notion of obscurity.

I know a great deal about fairy tales and myths and legends. But what I know about them is where they came from and how they travelled and how we figure out what purpose they serve. Did you know that "Ring Around a Rosy" has absolutely not one single thing to do with the Black Plague or with death and was almost certainly written in the 1800s as part of a party game for little girls?

I could, as most of you know, go on and on. Well, actually, I can't as I have to go get Douwe from school and find out what Daan is screaming about. It's his "so happy to be alive" scream, so there's no hurry. But it was sort of a strange thing to realize.

Love

My kids went through my still unpacked suitcases yesterday like the little Vandals they are, and discovered the Playmobil toys which were concealed by all that other stuff. I bought them almost two years ago now, because there was a big sale and Playmobil never ever goes on sale. I had some thought of holding out for An Occasion, but once they saw them that was sort of it.

There was an airplane and a little grocery store and a little bathroom. Yes, the bathroom seems weird, but I was right to buy it because Daan was fascinated with it. The Playmobil guy took about seven showers that day.

Douwe pounced on the airplane, and many trips have been taken to America in the past 24 hours. Also to space, as he cannot decide whether to be an astronaut or a pilot when he grows up. The pilot of the plane we took home, who shoed the kids around the cockpit, pointed out that to become an astronaut one must first be a pilot. So it is not a question of choice -- I wondered if he had difficulty making up his mind, too, when he was younger. He certainly knew a lot about it.

Douwe loves the airplane, he washed it gently at bathtime and dried it carefully and tucked it up under the covers and sang it a song and kissed it goodnight. I found this rather odd, really.

Then I remembered how my father is about his red Corvette. And decided that there are some things that are enduring.

Time and more time

We are talking about time at my house. I have started up a weekly calendar with the nifty magnet thingies we got when we were home. At this moment, our calendar shows a week at a time and the weather today.

The weather magnet got changed three times today, from "cloudy" in the morning to "windy" at lunchtime and "sunny" in the afternoon. May have to rethink that weather thing; there have been days when we would have to use all five options and make some more as well. How many ways can you say "overcast and threatening to rain" in English? In Dutch there are quite a few.

The magnet for "happy birthday" caused quite a stir this morning; I had to explain to Daan again (and again) that when it is someone else's birthday it is not necessarily his birthday, too. Though I finally sang "Happy Birthday" to him at his insistence after he sang it to me. Douwe took me out to the petting zoo and then into town for french fries and a coke after school for my birthday. He even paid for it, though I had to give him the money first.

Well, I suppose I take him places I like for his birthday, too, so we are even. But I was quite surprised; he never did that before. I didn't actually get that it was for my birthday until he said so this evening at bedtime. I figured he just wanted french fries today.

I was the recipient of a rooftop garden for my birthday; I can tell that Nel picked out all the flowers because they were all blue and purple. Conversely, I can tell that Douwe picked out some of the flowers for Nel's garden because they are most decidedly not blue and purple; they are blazing red and yellow and orange. The herbs I picked out myself last week. Dearly Beloved made me two boxes to start the Square Foot Gardening project; only this being Europe it will have to be half meter gardening. I will post some more pictures tomorrow when I get everything into dirt -- the flowers are still in the post they came in. I also have to transplant my strawberries already as they are setting fruit and I think they don't have enough dirt to support his massive growth pattern. In any event, they have to be watered something like twice a day if it doesn't rain.

I also am now the proud owner of a stephanotis plant in a pot and Nel even remembered that I had expressed some small desire to try orchids. So she bought me a smallish version of the orchid we had for our wedding lo these many moons ago.

My sister Jennifer the Younger got her card here on exactly the right day, a feat of timing which may never again be surpassed. Well done. My sister Jennifer the elder bypassed the problem and sent me two e-cards, guaranteed to get there on the right day barring server incidents. (The kids seriously dig the airplane one).

Since the calendar is a hit we are proceeding on the time front with a little kit about time which I picked up in the States. It has a book which covers the notions of time -- seasons, months, and so on -- and has little things you can build and do to do with time. It starts with making your own sundial and progresses to making your own clock, then learning how to tell time from the clock. Douwe took one look at the box and decided we are making the clock tomorrow; the sundial has no moving parts you see.

It lacks a miniature working model of stonehenge to track the solstices and equinoxes, though, bummer. But it seems to have everything else.

However, I expect my children will discard all that twaddle about the cycles of the seasons and phases of the moon and so on and go straight for the real point -- the part that moves and does stuff and can be taken apart is fun, no way around it.

Despite new security rules....

You can still see the cockpit if you ask

The race car

Four cousins

Jiggety Jig

We are home again, intact, but innocent of luggage. I am given to understand that my luggage should be arriving tomorrow from Cleveland, which seems odd as we changed planes in Cincinatti. Unfair, really, I have never been to Cleveland but my luggage has. I am assured that it is not lost, merely, um, on vacation without me. Still, if they actually can find it and deliver it (which remains to be seen) I will say that having it delivered here is an improvement over having to lug it home. That's a big if, though.

Still, it puts off the horrible unpacking for another day. Though if it never comes, hey at least I don't have to unpack it all.

The kids are asleep, though we are not sending them to school tomorrow, I don't have the energy for any incidents with Douwe's teacher arising from jet lag, whoops I mean his obvious social problems. But if the luggage comes through as promised it will be like Chrismas in May if I know my kids. Daan will have forgotten what was in the luggage; Douwe will have spent the day believing he will never see his brand new sky train again despite many parental assurances.

(Yes, I know, I don't believe it either despite many Delta assurances. No, I did not miss that.)

I cannot sleep. It must have been that last pot of coffee.

Added Tuesday morning: Well, it appears that the luggage is in Holland, the man at Delta, somewhat bemused by my doubting nature, assures me he has seen my luggage with his own eyes and it will indeed be delivered tomorrow morning. So we may be playing that whizbang interactive DVD game yet. Assuming I can get the stupid thing to speak its zeroes and ones in Dutch that is.