Kid not Included

Here are the flowers my mother sent to my mother in law today. It was a good day for it, as Nel was feeling rather low and her response to getting them was as enthusiastic as she has been all day.

A body would think that somebody had gone out and gottten all Nel's favorite flowers and put them in a pot which will look just smashing in her bedroom when she gets home. Well done, mom.

Those two flowers are only leaning due to the interference of the, um, background character, they were standing up straight when they were delivered.

Well finally

Is Mercury retrograde? The phones are all screwy, I can only call to the US sometimes (and sometimes not), the outgoing message mysteriously disappeared from our telephone, and Blogger is acting funny these past couple of days. People tell me they have left comments which are not appearing and somtimes I just get a big white screen when I go to write a new entry.

'Kay, just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.

Spring has arrived in Holland, my carnations and forget me nots and nasturtiums look great, one of my pumpkins is growing like mad already, the watermelon seeds have not poked above ground yet and I think the tomatoes drowned in there as they have not yet sprouted. Time to reseed I think. We ate all the lettuce so I think I will try them in the cold frame. It is not freezing at night but it is chilly after the sun leaves.

I don't even mind picking up the kids on the bike as the weather is nice again. So I guess I have a couple of months to get my driver's license before it turns cold again, hee hee.

I apologize to you all for being so scattered and so brief, I am quite literally running from wake up to coo-ee right now and while this is no doubt healthy it isn't doing anything for my ability to string together an intelligible sentence. We are now down to going to the hospital once a day and Paul goes back again in the evening by himself because the kids were not getting to bed until 10 and this does nothing (good) for their tempers.

I give up

The universe is conspiring to prevent my communicating with anyone.

To my brother, I wish a happy birthday and all great things.

And I have not been ignoring the music you sent me, really I haven't. Though it probably seems that way; it arrived shortly before we got hit by the tidal wave. I still think it's a good idea. But I am as you might have noticed sort of preoccupied at the moment.

I have actually been calling for several hours and have been unable to get a connection. Either all of you en masse changed your phone numbers and didn't tell me (which could happen I suppose but we are not, as a family, really gifted in the keeping of secrets) or something is screwy with this phone line.

So I will try again tomorrow and wish you a happy birthday one day late.

Orange

Nel has been wearing the nightgown chosen for her by her grandson. It is orange. It is really very orange, not a subtle color at all. She wore it for a walk down the hall yesterday. The name of the royal house of Holland is also Orange, and so the wearing of the color has led to many puns about the reigning queen of ward 25 -- the sheer volume of visitors Queen Nel gets has also not gone unnoticed at the hospital.

This morning she is once more chirping like a bird. The nose tube is still in though we are hoping it can come out again today and to that end a very close eye is being kept on the ins and outs of her drinking and feeding tube and so on. I do not imagine there has been this much attention paid to Nel's personal bodly functions since she was a very small child. Late this afternoon we are expecting to hear the results from the biopsy of the tumor, which was done after it was removed, and to receive what advice there may be from that. Otherwise, all appears to be well in Room 253.

More Expertise

Yesterday we had a meeting at the school to discuss the education plan for Douwe. We were there, Douwe's teacher was there, the, um, I guess we would call it a resource teacher was there and the coordinator from the speech school was there.

For most of the meeting unhappily I was not there. Douwe decided that the meeting was far too long and he furthermore objected strongly to everyone sitting around talking about him when he was not there and besides he was tired and wanted to go home. All of which added up to him being such a little pill that I would up leaving Paul to handle it and went outside with him and Daan.

Which was just as well since nothing really concrete came out of the meeting as far as I could tell. It lasted two hours, at least half of which evidently consisted of Paul and the coordinator from the speech school expressing their, um, differing opinions about whether it was a good idea to teach Douwe to read in English. So I am pleased that I was not there. Though I have no idea what I would have been able to say beyond pointing out that it is now too late, he can already read English.

I think this is fair to say. I mean, he isn't reading epic poetry or anything. He can read "Ten Apples Up on Top" and "The Berenstain Bears Go Up and Down" and so on with only a little help. The help he requires is to call his attention to the actual word he has to sound out, as he has a tendency to start making up the story when he hits a word or two he does not immediately know. So you do have to now and again put your finger under the difficult word and ask him what that word is. Then he sounds it out mostly, or guesses at it, depending on the mood he is in.

In any event, the conversation between Paul and the coordinator ended in Paul saying that we had no plans to stop him from either reading or speaking in English since half his family is American, and that was sort of the end of that. I have gone round and round this circle myself both in the states and here, so I am pleased to have missed it. Though as I say I am not sure I would have gone round and round again; I have worked out after many times around this maypole that the best response is to politely but firmly state that if one language is to be given up it will surely be Dutch -- since English is the only language every single member of this family can fluently speak -- and that they can surely agree with me that this would not be a good idea. People find it hard to argue with that.

No, of course we have no plans to quit speaking Dutch, are you mad? But it does put an end to a really fruitless conversation which serves mainly to reveal just how deep xenophobia does go. And yeah, I know I am a jerk, this is not news, lol.

In any event it was also a fruitless conversation because the school's position has always been that since the child is truly bilingual, the most sensible response to the occasional english word is to ask him if he knows the Dutch word for that, and to tell it to him if he does not and congratulate him if he does. Which is pretty much what we do at home. The school's only concern was whether we expected them to teach him in english and that was never a question -- I mean, it is a Dutch school in Holland, one rather expects the teaching to go on in English.

On of the interesting things about the process is that the problems the coordinator had written down to address are in large part entirely gone and irrelevant now because things are changing rather quickly. So she was all ready to talk about way to get Douwe to rhyme words and the teachers were like, "oh, no, he can rhyme all over the place, no need for that" and then going on with other things.

In any event, after all of that, the school is going to make a plan, rather like an IEP with goals and recommended strategies for dealing with them and so on and give it to us on Thursday. Then we will add and subtract whatever we think and give it back to them, it will be finalized and that will be that. But the actual plan is coming from the school itself, which is at this point quite helpful. If we get a bad teacher/student/parent combination in future this could become a problem, but there is no need to create such a problem now. At this moment, Douwe's teacher and I are entirely on the same page so it works out rather well.

There is some concern about next year, as learning becomes more structured and formal in group 3 (just as it does in the states with first grade) and no one is really sure what effect that will have on Douwe. I personally expect that it will make things much easier with him, he likes formal schooling and is good at it. However, there is no knowing for certain until we get there.

Would you believe

The second surgery is over, Nel is now in the recovery room. When they opened her up they found...nothing. No leak, nothing. She is healing nicely and the tube is not leaking. So they left it there and closed her back up.

It is now believed that a blockage in the feeding tube or something similar caused the feeding solution to appear where it should not have been.

On the one hand I am certain that it is a good thing that they did not wait and see, but instead moved to prevent an infection at the first opportunity. An infection in the abdominal cavity would be a complete disaster at this point.

And I am sure I will also think that, in about, oh, two hours or so. Just now, I confess, I think, "My God, all that for nothing? For nothing? What do you mean it was nothing? What the hell are you playing at over there?"

But even this is an improvement, what I thought five minutes ago probably is not suitable for broadcast to a mixed audience. *ahem*.

First setback

Until yesterday, Nel was being fed mostly through a feeding tube which went directly into her intestine. Yesterday evening, it was discovered that some of the food from that tube was coming out of the wound from the operation itself. This means that something has begun leaking somewhere, possibly from the tube itself. It may have happened during all the moving around yesterday or it could have happened earlier. What is certain is that the food from that tube should not be loose in her abdominal cavity.

So today, right now in fact, the doctors are going to open up the wound in her stomach and remove the feeding tube and wash out her abdominal cavity. At this time they are not planning to put a new feeding tube back in. Because she has been able to eat and digest food on her own, the feeding tube is not necessary any more.

In practical terms, the doctor has said that this will put her back about 4 days of healing time -- because the original incision has to be opened up again and will therefore have to heal again from the beginning.

This operation should itself take about an hour or so, and allowing time for anaesthesia and recovery, she should be out of her room for about two and a half hours. She will be coming back to her own room and they do not expect her to need to return to Intensive Care. So we expect her back around 1:30 or 2:00 our time this afternoon.

Nel is rather frightened by this development, as everything has been going so well. She felt very well this morning, so hearing this news was even more of an unpleasant surprise.

As we have developments we will certainly set them here. While anything is of course possible, I gather that the doctors do not expect any major setbacks or difficulties as a result of this second operation other than that the original wound will have to heal over again.

Paul is at the hospital and I have to go pick up the boys from school, then I expect we will go to the hospital this afternoon when she comes out of surgery.

Dad, I hope to send you an email for Thaxine tonight; it's been a bit of a buzz around here since this was discovered yesterday evening.

Second Easter Day

Today is second Easter Day. Didn't know there were two, did you? Silly you, you were thinking there was only, you know, the one. How many times can one person come out of a tomb, anyway?

In Holland I will have you know he can do it twice. Did anybody tell the pope about this? Eh, his holiness is German after all, maybe they have easter for a week.

There may be a very good reason for a second easter day, but I dont know what it is and it always strikes me as odd when I look at my calendar and there it is -- second easter, holiday.

Nel had her own rising today, she got out of bed for the first time. She was not allowed to walk, just sit up in a chair, but that was something. She still has tubes going onto her nose, which are a contant source of annoyance, but some part of the zillion tubes and so on have been removed which is nice, it lets her move around more.

Because it's a holiday, she had many visitors today so we didn't stay all that long today. She is cheery, if still easily tired. She has already begun devising ways to get around the obviously far too restrictive rules of the hospital (which were not intended to apply to her anyway obviously) so evidently the surgeon did not remove the "Stubborn" bone from her body.

My kids are still eager to go see her, they holler hooray and run for the door when it is suggested. Though Daan most carefully asks to be sure she is in her own room and not in ICU any more. He found ICU a bit creepy and was a Very Very Subdued Daan when she was there.

Daan is convinced that the nose tubes hurt and doesn't believe anybody who says otherwise. Douwe still thinks they are sort of cool, or at least interesting.

We also went to the garden center today to get flowers to put in the garden downstairs, with any luck it'll be in bloom in two weeks when Oma comes home.

Painting

The easter bunny also left some easter placemats to paint, and bring to Oma.  We are going to the hospital this afternoon and, since Nel is out of ICU today and in her room, Nel and I have arranged with the easter bunny to hide some eggs there as well..

The Jello eggs

I made gelatin eggs and the kids colored them with a brush and paint as is most common here.  They apparently did not realize the eggs were not regular eggs, so when they peeled thim this morning they were covered in shock and awe to find red eggs and decided immediately that the Easter Bunny magically changed their eggs to candy. (Jello is not popular here, I am not sure they have ever seen jello to remember it).

So at this moment they firmly believe in the easter bunny.

The Palm Frond eggs

Moving on to the kitchen

We discovered the flocked bunnies  (which I intended as a sort of centerpiece but were evidently also really for playing with).

The decorated eggs you can see here are often put up on a sort of stick which, if you squint your eyes a little does sort of look like a palm frond.  The sticks go up on Palm Sunday, they are decorated later.  It took me a while to figure that one out, I though they were doing easter trees and I thought it was sort of weird.  Turns out they are easter palms.

The haul

First they discovered their easter baskets -- they only want chocolate chickens, not chocolate bunnies for some reason.  Douwe even wrote a letter to the easter bunny to make sure he brought a chicken and not a bunny.  They also got Batman pajamas.  It is good to have a fictional character bring the cool jammies, as this way all the jammies don't have to be cool if you get my drift.  (Mommies who  have to pay for the cool jammies got my drift immediately, the rest of you, don't worry about it).

 

I also use this subterfuge with slippers, but this year they just got new slippers. 

The easter bunny

Last weekend we went to an easter egg hunt with friends and affterwards has a visit from the easter bunny.

As good as it gets

The news on Nel is as good as it gets. None of the possible tricky bits happened -- it had not spread at all, it was one tumor in one place. It was not located near anything she couldn't live without. They did not have to take out her whole pancreas, they were able to leave her the top part which is evidently where insulin is produced. So they think her diabetes will not be made worse because of the surgery.

They took out her gall bladder, a bit of her stomach, a bit of the duodenum, and then stitched it all back together. She did not have any of the complications which might have happened either from surgery or anaesthesia.

Paul and Ernest spent much of the afternoon at the hospital, mostly waiting for Nel to wake up as I gather. But they did get to talk to her, and the surgeon, and her internist and so on.

The kids and I went into town on the bikes and went to the park and colored easter eggs and then hid them (just a warm up, you know) and made dinner and played with trains. So I haven't seen Nel. I expect we will see her tomorrow.

The thought of Thing Two loose in an ICU unit makes me faint. I have declared that if he has to go into ICU, he is going in arms and his feet are not touching the ground, not even once. He is faster than a striking snake and he does not ask "Mom, what's this thing?" before he tries to dismatle it. I mean, maybe it's just my adrenaline talking -- I assume they have back ups and so on. But I just keep imagining some bad movie scene in which my four year old plays the starring role -- grieving family, heart wrenching decisions to be made regarding life support, preschooler, um, resolving the problem without further consultation. Sound of flatline and echoing "code blue"s in the background while winsome blond child looks at the end of a power cable he has just pulled out of the wall.

You guys know him. Don't even try to tell me it couldn't happen.

Fixed it

I wondered why no one was speaking to me. It won't do that thing any more, I fixed it.

Thanks, Dad, for the heads up.

If you have no idea what I am talking about you should comment more.

Though now it's too late, *snort*.

The baby doc

We all went along for the follow up to the pediatrician, because there has been a lot of activity around hospitals for the last 10 days or so and wanted to avoid any fear on that score. It was a very short appointment. All of Thing Two's tests are within normal limits -- his bone age is 4 years old, his >impronounceable Dutch word for a chemical in the blood which indicates the level of growth hormone<>

He grew half a centimeter in the mean time.

The only test not within normal limits was that there was a trace of protein in his urine test which according to the doctor was so small that it was of zero interest.

So he sort of shrugged, said we had a very healthy small child, and suggested we come back in a year to see if anything had changed.

Ramblings

We now for pretty obvious reasons have a book on The Human Body. The kind with see through pages with the organs of the various systems all picked out in Technicolor. It is bidding fair to compete with Pooh for Favorite Bedtime Reading.

In particular, Thing Two is wild about The Human Body. Today I got to outline for him exactly how the brain and nervous sytem work. Try that in language suitable for a four year old. When I put him to bed I asked him how many kisses he wanted (I ask him that every night). He said "I am thinking in my brain now. I think in my brain maybe ten". And pointed to his cheek.

I said, "Your brain is in here" and pointed to the top of his head. He said "Yes, but ten is too many to fit in there so you have to kiss me here".

Thing One on the other hand is extremely interested in blood. No, I know you knew that, but I mean, blood still in veins and the heart and so on. How it all gets pumped around, up and down and over and under and through. He is very disappointed that you can see his brother's veins nearly everywhere and mine, too but his you can really only see on his hands and feet. Those hundred generations of Portuguese fishermen again, he is darker complected even though it's the tail of winter.

Okay it doesn't take much to be darker than me and Thing Two.

Thing One is in general angry -- with Nel for being sick, with me for not making her better, and well, just in general. He has no idea why he is angry or what he is angry at to tell you the truth. He is just angry. We painted the jello eggs today and he painted his in furious swirls of black, red, and dark green. He has pulled back into his fantasy world a bit and it is once more dificult to get his attention tracked off of it and onto ordinary and mundane matters. I did not consciously realize that he had stopped doing that actually, until he began doing it again.

Thing Two is clingy and at random moments throws both arms around my neck and insists that I must stay with him, that I can never go away.

Nimrod

I am a nimrod.

I really am.

I have been tearing this house apart looking for my recipe for pao doce because easter is coming and besides I have to fatten Our Nel Up and she has been given a blank check from her internist regarding her blood sugar.

She can eat anything she wants if she will just gain weight.

I couldn't find it anywhere. You know where I found it? You know where it was?

In the archives on this very blog.

*doh*

Jello eggs

I made jello eggs today. I also made jelly eggs yesterday. You know what? What Dutch guys call jelly is a dessert, red, made with a day-glo powder by heating and then cooling.

But it is not, despite many assurances that it must be, it is most resoundingly not Jello.

It is in fact jelly. No translation necessary, it is a dessert made with pectin and so on.

It's all soggy and soft and does not make a good egg.

So I made them today with sheet gelatin, plain old glass-looking sheets of gelatin, and fruit juice.

Now, that's a good egg. They are as hard as knox blox. I had so hoped to make them green, because Daan would simply die if I fed him green eggs and ham for breakfast. His little eyes would be bigger than the eggs if I served him a green egg. Alas, no green.

They are red. Eh, it's easter, red eggs, I can go with that.

I expect we will color them tomorrow.

Thank you

And to all of you who are lighting candles and beating drums and warming up the prayer circles and, I dunno, dancing naked under the full moon, we are an equal opportunity crew around here.

To each and every one of you who has thought of Nel kindly during this time:

Thank you. She is simply thrilled at the thought of all those candles over the entire world going up for her. Such a bonfire of thoughts and good wishes for Our Nel, it is overwhelming and joyful.

The surgery will be on Friday starting at about 10 am ish our time (so 4 in the morning EST if you guys have gone over to DST by now). It should go on for 4 to 8 hours, they won't give a better estimate than that. But as you might imagine we are rather hoping for longer rather than shorter. A short operation will mean that they were unable to get all the cancer and in that case they will out in a sort of shunt to get the bile into her digestive system and out of her bloodstream and then close her back up. So we want a really, really long one.

We are so Catholic. Both of us. We both immediately said something like this --So at three o'clock they should just about be putting you back together, what a good sign.*

Then we laughed our butts off. You really can take the girl out of the church but you can't.....

*For the not-Catholics out there: three o'clock is the traditional moment when Christ dies on the cross. A moment of silence and reflection is traditionally observed. It is the momnent when, according to an old hymn, sunset first begins to turn to sunrise -- the movement of time and focus from the privation and reflection of Lent to the joy and celebration of Easter begins.

Update

We have been to the hospital every day this week -- the dietician because Nel has lost 10 kilos -- 22 pounds -- in the last few months and I have been given firm instructions to fatten her up like a foie gras goose for Friday, the anaesthesia guy, the surgery team, the post op doc, and so on. Tomorrow is the only day this week we are not going to the hospital this week.

So of course tomorrow is Daan's follow up with the pediatrician. Whose office is in the hospital.

I think we should just set up a camp bed and save commuting time.

So I have not written much. I actually came upstairs to write here several times today but people are coming to visit. This is a good thing and most welcome.

It's funny, everybody reacts to this news in a different way. We have had some folks downright insisting that Nel must be feeling badly, but she really is not. She has no symptoms now other than a terrible itch -- the itch is from the bile salts from her gall bladder being deposited in her skin because her gall bladder is partially blocked. After many frustrating phone calls I left Nel upstairs at the x ray, and walked into the surgeon's office. I then begged and pleaded and carried on at some length. It appears that the resistance we were meeting was simply that, because this process has gone so fast, her status had not yet been entered into the computer. So the office staff there did some actual sneaker-on-the ground footwork, with which I was much impressed. And they came up with something. I have no idea what it was, but Nel got to sleep a whole night for the first time in far too long so whatever it is we are glad to have it.

As I understand it, this is the problem with pancreatic cancer -- that you have no real symptoms until it's too late and it has spread through your whole body. Happily (?) well, yes, it's an odd kind of happiness but still, happily, Nel's gall bladder closed at some point which made her yellow. Otherwise she probably also would have found out after it was too late.

It has since opened again, at least partially, because she is much less yellow -- heck, she is no yellower than my mother and my sister, she looks rather as though she had bought a cheap ass tanning lotion -- and the rest of her symptoms have also disappeared. So it is a very good thig she went to the doctor when she did, because otherwise she would almost certainly have concluded that whatever-that-was, had healed itself.

In any event, it has been quite an eye opener in a lot of unexpected ways.

Nel is typically Nel, ever and always. Her primary worry point has been the boys -- both hers and mine. Otherwise, well, you know how people say death is a part of life? Here's a secret -- most of them don't actually believe that when it isn't a line on a greeting card but death is actually sitting in the room with you. I believe it, and I am not at all sure that I would continue to believe it in that case. But my mother in law actually does.

I did spend some time today shopping for nightgowns, as Our Nel plans to be attractively clad for the two weeks she has to stay in hospital. I offered her a nice bed jacket with fourteen layers of lace and ruffles and she said, well, there are things one really shouldn't put out in print. So she didn't want a bed jacket with ruffles and lace and so on.

I even helpfully pointed out that smocking adds, you know, layers to your front if strategically placed. She responded with something even more unprintable. Some people, you know, you just can't help them.

So instead I got her a shocking pink Warhol print nightgown and a green one with a mandala and a lucky elephant and an orange one which was part of an in joke which wasn't even funny -- though if repeated often enough it might become funny, you know how in jokes are.

A candle

For the past couple of weeks, Nel has not been feeling especially well. She did not, of course, tell anybody very much about it until about two weeks ago when she went to the doctor. He gave her some medicine and told her to call him in two weeks if it didn't get better.

Then when we were on vacation she started to turn yellow. So she went back to the doctor, who ordered some tests. Then there were some more tests.

It appears Nel has pancreatic cancer. She will be operated on next Friday. The good news is, that while it has spread it does not appear to have spread very far. The bad news is, part of it is in a bad place and they may not be able to remove it. They cannot tell whether it can be removed until they actually open her up and have a look.

I will no doubt write quite a lot more about this before we are done (and certainly before Friday) but in the mean time I have a request.

My mother in law firmly believes in lighting candles for people. Anyone reading this blog who feels so inclined, would you please light a candle for my mother in law.

And a personal note to my dad: Dad, I never, ever thought I would say this. I am not sure I would ask it for myself. But for Nel, I certainly would.

Would you call Maxine and get the prayer circle cranked up?

All other prayer circles are also welcome. But Maxine's prayer circle, well. Maxine's prayer circle is a blog entry all by itself. What can I tell you, some people just have it going on.
I'll start.

Lord Jesus, Divine Physician and Healer of the sick, we turn to you in this time of illness. O dearest comforter of the troubled, alleviate our worry and sorrow with your gentle love, and grant us the grace and strength to accept this burden. Dear God, we place in your hands the body of Nel van der Linden, whom we love.

Hold her in your hand, O Lord, We place Nel under your care and humbly ask that if it be your will, you restore her to health again. Grant us also, Father, the grace to acknowledge your will and know that whatever you do, you do for the love of us.

To your care, Blessed Mother, we commend the surgeons and physiscians and nurses and caregivers of Nel van der Linden; Turn your eyes with gentle mercy upon them. Guide their hands, calm their hearts and touch them with Your strength and certainty and joy in the power of life and knowledge of the sorrow of death as they too minister to Nel, whom we love.

Be near and watch, O Lord, with all those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend your sick ones, O Lord Christ. Rest your weary ones. Bless your dying ones. Soothe your suffering ones. Pity your afflicted ones. Shield your joyous ones. And for all your love's sake.

A puzzle

At the Montessori school, the children stay at school through lunch. The way this works is that during lunchtime a certain number of parents have to be there to watch the kids while the teachers take a break. So every family is obliged to volunteer to show up at lunchtime a certain number of days per year (this year it is 6).

There are also a group of parents who volunteer to show up on regular days and supervise the other parents -- every Monday, say. It appears that next year there will not be enough of these.

I have not volunteered, because it involves a certain number of meetings and so on, and the reality is that a large group of people all speaking Dutch at the same time is difficult for me to follow, a fact I find embarassing. So I avoid all activities involving meetings, which means almost all activities here in the Lowlands, land of discussion and consensus.*

However, I was talking to one of the supervising moms today and she mentioned that there would not be enough people next year. I said if I didn't have to go to the meetings I shouldn't mind it really.

She asked me if I had ever been assigned to the Older Kids. In a Significant Tone. I said no, the woman who "has" Mondays always leaves me with the little kids (the under-8 or 9 year olds, say third graders) because I don't speak the language properly.

She said I should go watch the Older Kids before I volunteered. In the same Significant Tone.

I have heard this tone before in relation to the Older Kids -- evidently no one wants to watch the Older Kids. I am the subject of some jealousy because I never have to watch the Older Kids. I have no clue what the issue is, I am an innocent in this matter. What on earth can they be doing that invokes the Significant Tone?

In general I rather like kids. Usually, I have to admit, I like them better than I like their parents. This has been true for a long time, long before I actually had kids.

I asked her. She said rather vaguely, "Oh, you know, they can be a little mouthy".

Well, Dutch kids are in general quite mouthy from my perspective -- not really offensively so, at least not so far. But then, Dutch parents are mouthier than are American ones (also not offensively so, at least not in general) so I haven't been all that surprised. When directness is a cultural value, you gotta figure at some point or another somebody is likely to say something that rubs you the wrong way. I mostly just tell them it rubs me the wrong way and leave it at that. I have heard a lot about this from various of the English Club, but it hasn't been a huge issue for me. Possibly I just enjoy rudene-- er, directness. Possibly I relish the chance to be rude back (it's a Catholic thing I am sure).

But now I am curious. (George was curious, too, it got him popped into a bag and carried off to the Zoo as you will recall). So I guess on my next stint as a volunteer I shall request to watch the Older Kids and find out what all the fuss is about. I wonder, do they count coup or post heads on a pike? What?

* I admire this actually even though I complain about it a lot and find it difficult to get used to. Nobody ever decides anything; we all have to agree about it or at least be hammered into accepting it as the best of a number of bad options.

Also while we were gone

I got home to find that my lettuces are about the size of my thumb and I have a whole row of cornflowers and carnations and furthermore I have a pumpkin seedling poking its little head up.

I was so happy I considered sending out a birth announcement. Boy am I ready for Spring to be here.

Daan's idea of going swimming

Didja miss me?

Sorry about being so coy about the whole thing. Despite being tucked away here in my boring little corner of the Internet I just cannot bring myself to announce to the entire world that we are going on vacation for a week.

Here's where we went.

Centerparcs is sort of, well, like camping near a rec center only you get a house. It was a nice house. The food, I have to tell you, is terrible. I am not demanding on a family vacation, I require only food sufficient to maintain life. Um, I think people must cook in those little houses a lot because the food in the restaurants was really very bad.

According to Douwe, the best part was the swimming. We can now forget all that stuff about him being afraid of water and so on, um, he's way over it. A week ago I thought I had better get him into swimming lessons because otherwise he was going to be nervous of water the rest of his life; now I have to teach him to swim post haste because otherwise he is going to scare me out of a decade of my life. He has figured out how to dog paddle and to swim underwater and a sort of half backstroke (he kicks well; his arms he mostly flails about) and that's good enough for him, he was cannonballing into the water off the walls and riding the white water rapids waterslide and going snorkeling and god knows what all.

He has firmly announced today that the idea of a swim diploma* is stupid and that I am going to teach him to swim freestyle and breast stroke. Tomorrow.

Daan dislikes swimming generally, though he enjoys getting in the wading end of the pool. I have viciously prevented everyone from "coaxing" (please read, tossing) Daan into the water as some of you may recall that this is (in my opinion) the reason Douwe has been afraid of water for so long and I have no plans to have to nurse a second set of phobias back to health. Daan is far more determined than his brother ever dreamed of being and I cannot even imagine how I would get him back into the water after the coaxing Douwe got. So Daan got to play in the wading pool and eat hamburgers. According to Daan the best part was (are you ready?).....

Bowling. Daan loves bowling. I really hope the pictures I took on the disposable camera came out because Daan really, really loves bowling. I know the ball is three times as big as his head; he doesn't care. He gets behind it on his knees, lines the ball up carefully with the little marks on the lane and pushes as hard as he can. Daan brought down the house every time we went bowling, everybody was cheering him on.

*Around here everybody gets a swim diploma. Everybody. You have to have a swim diploma. This apparently means you go to swim lessons and pass some tests which mean you can swim. If you can already swim, I hear, you still have to take some kind of swim test at school at around 8 and if you pass they issue you a belated swim diploma. An honorary swim diploma? I dunno, it's like a passport or something I think. Paul's is filed with his childhood well visits and immunization record; evidently it's that big a deal. But I can't figure out why you can't just, you know, learn to swim.

Regularly scheduled programming

may be interrupted in the next few days. All is well, but I may be offline for a week or so.

And by the way

My boys, who do not care at all about what they wear ever, have suddenly decided that they cannot leave the house without - are you ready?

Colored gel in their hair making it stick straight up.

Daan favors blue to match his eyes, in a stripe right down the middle of his head so it looks like a blue mohawk.

Douwe currently favors green, only in the very front so you can see his widow's peak. But he asked me to go buy orange today, because it will show up better and he looks good in orange. He does look good in orange, but I wasn't really thinking of his hair.

Oom Ernest took us to the woods near his house today and he, well. He said as much good as he could manage with a straight face about the fact that his nephews were proudly sporting blue-and-green mixed spikes on top of their heads.

I was very impressed, actually. Way to be supportive, Oom Ernest. Nicely done. You know, the rest of you, "really colorful" can also sound very much like a compliment if you inflect it right.

I wonder how their teachers keep a straight face: they inform me that their teachers really love the spikes.

Some more free advice

If, on the first really pleasant day of the year, you decide to drop everything and take your kids for a walk in the woods with Oma, and then you decide to go to the restaurant/playground nearby afterwards for a lovely cup of coffee and therefore you are late getting home so you call your spouse and ask him to start dinner.....

Should you do all that and then get home to find that the spouse did not in fact start dinner exactly but instead turned the heat on under the potatoes (which you, efficient thing that you are, peeled already and had waiting) and then trotted off to play another round of Go.....

If that happened so that you came home at 6:30 with two starving kids and one starving Oma to find that the water had boiled over all over the stove while a particularly intense Go exchange was going on and therefore you and starving Oma went immediately to work warming up leftovers for the kids (because they couldn't wait another second) and mashing potatoes and frying meat and making salad and so on......

If you were doing that while the kids were whining and moaning and Oma was grumbling about aforementioned spouse and you were muttering threats and imprecations under your breath also about aforementioned spouse and meat was frying....

If you were doing that with a wand hand mixer thingie with the blade underneath and you lifted out the mixer thingie to clean out the mashed potatoes with cheese with your left hand while turning around over your right shoulder to tell your child it would be ready in two seconds because he had gone right past whine into cry and you evidently left your right finger on the "on" button while doing so......

You might just cut the hell out of your left index finger and also crack your fingernail right down the middle and bleed all over everything.

It does put an end to your kids' whining when you bleed all over everything, though. So it has an upside. It also makes it much harder to type. And when the shock wears off, it hurts like hell.

Happily I had the presence of mind to clean it out before the shock wore off or that would have hurt a lot too. Cheese mashed potatoes should not be in an open wound it seems to me.

Anyway, that's my advice for the day.

Whoops

Sorry, I posted the pictures of the circus in the wrong order and now I can't figure out how to fix it. Go down to "Guess what we did tonight?" and work your way up.

Sorry, my bad.

But when it was time to play circus

after we got home, this is what they wanted to play:

Yes, no tigers, no camels, no acrobats and no fire eaters.  My kids wanted to play circus cat all night.  Go figure.

This one's for mom

did you know giraffes like bananas?  That's what it's reaching for.

What Douwe did

during the intermission.  Daan wanted Absolutely Nothing to Do With That Thing.  He retreated behind me and stayed there.

This is what Daan looked like

Pretty much the whole 4 hours.

The thing about a small town circus

Is you can get right up to the action.

Guess what we did tonight?

We went to the circus. Here are the tigers coming in.

Winter Olympics

Okay, I guess I have recovered from the Winter Olympics.

The kids' school had a Winter Olympic Games at a local skating rink. The whole school had a field trip at the same time.

We will now have a short pause while all the parents who read this blog go off to fetch an Excedrin and a cold pack at the idea of an entire grammar school having a field trip at the same time in the same place.

Somehow in the sweep of events I found myself volunteering to go along as a chaperone. I got a little book all printed up about the Olympic Games. The children are broken up into groups of 6 and will be wearing colored name tags with their group number on them, each group has 2 parents to keep track of the kids and the groups will cycle through the games, fifteen minutes per game with periodic breaks for food and potty breaks and so on. An entirely different group of parents is equipped with plastic bags and extra clothing and is assigned to do nothing but take little kids to the bathroom and change them if they don't make it as necessary. Another group of parents is assigned to man the tunnel which goes from the figure skating rink (where the little kids go) to the larger racing rink where the big kids go.

I was assigned to run the "slalom" game on the ice (game number 5, byt the way, lol). This means you set up eight little cones and the kids skate between them, you know, like in a bike rodeo but then on skates.

I was dumbstruck at the amazing organization of this Plan. It was a work of art.

Well. Except. These kids are between 4 and 6 years old. The canals have not frozen solid enough to skate on in the past 2 years, so they have never been on ice unless it was at a skating rink. So. First was the acqusition of rental skates for everybody who didn't have any. This task was assigned to the group parents, the rest of us were suppsoed to be drinking coffee. But the call for "all hands on deck" went out and we all went trooping over to locate and put on ice skates (Tommy, Stein, stop playing swordfights with the skate blades, those are sharp. Siep, put your coat back on. Nanneke, darling, I love your ice skates with the little princesses on them but it isn't necessary to kick Hanneke to show them to me. /& repeat)

Then half the kids went on the ice and half the kids went to play organized games off the ice (three hours on ice is a long time when you are 4 to 6). The kids off the ice decided the games were boring and wandered over to the ice to watch. The kids on the ice mostly couldn't ice skate so the idea of slaloming was a non-starter. It's hard to slalom on your butt).

Within ten minutes the Plan was in shambles. So everybody regrouped, the Game parents were assigned to cruise around and teach kids to stand up on ice skates. Meanwhile Douwe and Daan got up a good game of bumper cars with the other kids who could already skate or who had double bladed skates with the little cage thingies they have to help starting skaters.

It went on like that. It was fun. Chaotic but fun.

It's nice to know we all agree

That I have the cutest kids ever.

This picture is now gracing the web page of the City where we live, under the section of pictures about Carnaval.

Or it was a second ago, it's a slideshow so now it's somebody else.

I downloaded it because if you don't read Dutch you will never find the section of pictures about Carnaval; who desigend that web page anyway?  Entirely insensitve to the needs of overseas relatives I say.

The Olympic Games

The kids' school did a kid Winter Olympics today at the local skating rink. Okay, really it was a school wide field trip to the skating rink. I got roped into being one of the chaperones becasue I can skate and I have an extra pair of skates in a child's size. They are mine, though, around here I have the foot size of an average eleven year old. Land of the Giants, *sigh*.

It was fun. I am exhausted. I'll tell you about it tomorrow, but I wanted the grandparents to see the pictures.

All in all this was Daan's favorite part

There were also lessons in ice dancing.

Showing off

Douwe walked arounf for probably ten minutes with his skates in his hands, demonstrating that he had his very own skates, and was not required to wear the rental skates.

I asked him why.  He said "Hey, I'm a tough guy".

Putting on the skates

I used to wonder sometimes what God thought

about this or that. But now that I've talked to Him, well I have a whole new perspective.

Click here to speak with the Big Guy yourself.

Seems I remember Him though when His name was Eliza.

Well let me tell you

What the little demons got up to today. New things every day indeed.

Today I went upstairs to put my little angels in bath. To discover that while nicely playing upstairs they decided it would be really fun to....are you ready?.....

Write and draw all over the bedroom.

They drew on the sheets of the bed the racing numbers and stripes and the steering wheel and even the headlights of a race car. They drew the red-yellow-green starting light thingie on the wall. They drew the guard rail (with a part broken out, evidently by an ex-opponent) on the other wall. On the door they wrote a list of the cars in the race and their numbers.

Daan was evidently assigned to draw the spectators, so there was a series of big smiley faces too, next to the guard rail.

They were in so much trouble. You have no idea.

Actually they were very casual about it and said, "oh, we'll clean it up" and ran for the washcloths. Then it didn't come off. And it didn't come off. And it didn't come off. Daan was still casual at this point but Douwe was in a panic because he was beginning to understand just how much trouble he really was in if this stuff didn't come off.

Well, it was a lot of trouble he was in. However, the Magic Sponge came to the rescue again adn there is no permanent harm done. However, I think it will be a long time before anybody writes on the wall again.

And I think we will be putting Harold and the Purple Crayon away for a little bit: I recognize those spectators.

You know, it's a thing

My spouse agreed sweetly and without murmur to go to the butcher for me today. He has the car after all and the really- good butcher is a rather long way to bike and in the entirely wrong direction. The just-good butcher is much closer. So I asked him to go and just get meat for a week, whatever he would like. But no liver unless he wants to cook it, I don't do guts.

That was nice. And when your spouse agrees sweetly to do something for you, you really should not complain, first because it is ungracious and not nice and second because if you do he will never do anything for you again because "I never do it well enough for you,". Got that.

But y'all. I have only one thing to say about this.

Horse?

He brought me a horse roast?

What the hell am I supposed to do with a horse roast?

Is this some kind of byzantine payback for my refusal to cook guts? Or do you think he really just wants to eat Mr. Ed?

Oh, dear

Yesterday, Paul went to France. In a car. So he left before dark and got home very late. He was riding with possibly the only person in the western world who routinely drives faster than my mother does, so it was not all that late. But nevertheless.

It was late enough that when I woke him up to take the kids to school he muttered some threats and imprecations and went back to sleep.

Great. You guys know how much I like last minute changes in plan, yes? Particularly when they involve my riding a bicycle through the rain pulling about, oh, 70 pounds of child behind me and I am standing in my pajamas?

However, I did do it. I wish I could say I did it graciously, since I knew he was justifiably tired. But mostly I did it with a certain amount of muttering.

Then Douwe decided he wanted to ride his bike rather than ride in the bicycle cart. He has not been allowed to do this as it is pretty far and, well, if it were only one way that would be one thing. But he then has to ride the bike for the trip back after all day at school, which is another thing entirely.

Still, he is getting older. And it must be said that Douwe is a much more fun person to be around generally if he has had some occasion for strenuous exercise. And we have all been sort of cooped up here lately.

These thoughts were still going through my head as Douwe wheeled his bike out into the street and sat on it and asked if I was coming. *Eh*, I thought, okay kid.

He did sort of get tired at one point fairly near the school. Then he started humming the "Speed Racer" theme song and began threading his way through the imaginary crashes and so on of the Great Mountain Race. Interesting motivation, that.

The trip home was uneventful, but again he did get tired at one point on the way. So I don't think he's ready to ride his bike every day. But still, Paul is going back to school this month, to get his certification to be a physics teacher when he grows up. So it is good to have it as an option I think.

Daan of course now wants to ride his bike, too. He was firmly informed that he could do it when he was six (it was the best I could come up with: "You are too little" is not a good answer and just makes him more determined).

So I have the feeling I am going to be riding my bike rather more in the immediate future.

Good thing Spring is coming.

Curious Daan goes to the

Hospital.

Today Daan went to the pediatrician -- which is a specialist here so you have to go to the hospital to see one. I walked through the door and the doctor said, "Oh, well, the mother explains a lot". He had to measure me, I am exactly a meter and a half.

After looking at Daan for a while in various ways he said that the formula they use to decide if a child should be checked for being too small is an average of the parents' heights, but that his experience is that children tend to take after one or the other. His general impression is that Daan is just small.

However, this did not stop him from ordering a blood test, a urine test, and a bone age scan. Each of which is in a different place in the hospital so we have had quite a journey today. Daan didn't cry at all when they drew his blood, and they took a lot -- it was 5 tubes of blood. But you know now they do it all with the one needle. Once the needle was in he just sat there and sang "Jingle Bells".

However, poor little Daan couldn't manage to pee. He did try, he was little Mr. Cooperative today, but no go. So having had a quick flashback to my own youth, I asked for the sample jar, bought him a Coke, then took him to have the bone age scan -- which is really just an x ray of hs hand.

Thereafter the Coke did its work and we took care of that little chore.

We go back in six weeks to see if there is anything interesting. The doc says the only real possibility left is that his levels of growth hormone are too low, which is what all the blood work was about. He said with most of the other disorders that cause a child to be too small you usually see other health problems. And Daan is as healthy a child as ever was born.

Well, when he isn't drinking nail polish remover I mean.

Today Douwe read a story..............-m-

all by himself, which his mother wrote for him. It takes up exactly one page. I wrote it down and handed it to him and he read it with no help.

It went like this:

Douwe is a boy.
Douwe has a car.
The car is the Mach 1.
The Mach 1 car goes fast.
Douwe wins!
Douwe is happy.

The Mach 1 is Douwe's newest fantasy acquisition. He can tell you all about it; is it possible to have an imaginary friend which is a machine? It has that feeling, the Mach 1 is always available to whisk Douwe out of a tight spot.

It is occasionally upsetting to his father and grandmother that Douwe abruptly announces (usually in the middle of being told "no" or being told he has to do something he does not want to) that "I have to go race now" and runs off to sit in the middle of the floor holding his arms in front of him at steering wheel level. Or sometimes he has to fix it before the big race starts in which case he usually crawls under something or turns over a chair and becomes very busy under it.

But he is in fact getting in the Mach 5, er, sorry, Mach 1.

He then dictated a story for me to write up for Daan which goes like this:

Daan is a boy.
Daan has a helicopter.
The helicopter is green.
The green helicopter goes high, high.
Daan wins too!
Daan is happy.

Then he read that one to Daan.

I have a feeling I am about to become an author of many children's stories, with a very devoted public of two.

Children's Carnaval parade today

Who is that masked man

Princess Carnaval

Ready to go

Which one is bigger?

And the winner is.........-m-

Daan, who was voted "best costume in the primary grades" for his devastating appearance as Batman.

Douwe of course had a lovely time, because his pal Ryan showed up also dressed as Superman as was (evidently) planned. He now claims tht the reason he had cold feet this morning was that he thought Ryan would show up in regular clothes leaving Douwe feeling foolish. They were by report of their father both terrified by the appearance of Princess Carnaval and her retinue and her dancing girls and her marching band and so on. Douwe's picture is in fact on the front page of the Montessori school webpage right now, laughing his butt off. So is Daan's, though he is hard to recognize (that being the purpose of a batman mask).

Anyone who wants to see them and I haven't already sent it to, send me an email and I'll send you the link. I am not sure about the propriety of sending the entire internet to the website of the montessori school and I doubt they would thank me for it, lol.

Pictures to follow: I had to use a disposable camera I am afraid, so it'll be about a week.

Urg

Okay, so I have not had the best parenting morning of all time. You know, most of the time I do a fairly good job I think. But there are some things that make me just nuts.

Today is the Carnaval parade for te kids' school. So they go to school dressed up, just like they do for Halloween in the states I suppose. They have been talking about it all week. They want to wear this, they want to wear that. So they got up, hurrah, we get to wear the costumes to school. All is well.

Then half way through getting dressed, Douwe decides tht he doesn't want to after all. Thus ensues much moaning crying and objecting and arguing and claiming to be sick. (Though he is getting older, so this time no actual lying on the ground and kicking. Must remember to be grateful for progress).

Why? I dunno. He doesn't know. But it happens a lot with him -- he wants to do something, whateve rit may be. He wants to do it a lot. Then at the penultimate moment, *shrug*. He doesn't want to any more. The problem is this: at the ultimate moment, he wants to do it a lot. He always, without exception, is happy when it happens, and before it happens. But just as it is about to happen he hates it.

Which places me in the position of cajoling, wheedling, and sometimes bullying and dragging him into it by main force. All of which I do so that he can have a good time.

And afterward he doesn't even really recall the wheedling/cajoling/bullying/dragging by main force part. He only remembers the fun part.

But sometimes, in the moment you understand, I wonder why I am working this hard to force him to have a good time.

And yes, mom, I do have some, oh, vague recollection that perhaps very long ago and far away in another place and time there might have once been some other child who did exactly the same thing. I do remember. (Though I realize that I never kicked and screamed and threw a fit, My Mother's Children Would Never. It is a difference in degree I think but not in kind),

But it doesn't help, I didn't know why I did it then; I don't know why I did it then, now.

But I am glad you didn't just drown me in the sink and hope to follow that example.

Carnaval

Well, it's that time of year again. Tomorrow is the Carnaval parade at the school and the last day before a week vacation for carnaval.

Douwe is going as Superman. Daan is going as Batman. Yes, the cape will drag as it's really Douwe's costume.

It will be a really big thing at the school as our Prince Carnaval this year comes from the Montessori school. Only for the first time, this year Prince Carnaval is a Princess Carnaval and she is also Iranian (I think) and not Dutch. I assume she is Catholic: if you have to be Protestant to be King, I think you should have to be Catholic to be Prince Carnaval.
Sunday is the grown up's parade and it will go right by the house again. So I have invited some of the kids' pals over with their parents and we'll all watch the parade go by. Hopefully from indoors, unless it warms up, lol.

Report cards

We have gone and had Douwe and Daan's reports, though the Montessori school does not use report cards for this age group. Everything is fine.

It's so nice to have nothing to report.

They don't run with scissors and they don't hit and they do their work as requested and what more could a teacher ask for?

Douwe continues to have trouble with story time in a group setting, which the teacher thinks (and we think, too) has to do with the sheer amount of concentration he has to put in to follow a story in a group setting -- it's like the telephone problem, it's almost pure verbal input and it's a lot of work for him. So he gets tired of it and is easily distracted. Or distracting if he is sitting near his little pals. Since what works for me (ask him questions about the story as you go along or touch him gently to help him refocus) cannot work in a group setting, we are holding out for the Experts' advice on that. I wonder if they could give him a second copy of the book or something so he could see it up close. I did suggest giving him a little ball of clay or a bean bag to play with in his hand; it seems to help him focus in other group settings.

He has now demonstrated to his teachers that he knows the alphabet *whew* and can read and write simple words in cursive. He has also consented to demonstrate that he can add and subtract numbers up to 10 and count to 30.

Daan is entirely self willed (he jumped abruptly into a deep puddle on the playground the other day soaking himself to his waist -- "mommy, I went swimming today!";) and even more distressing, he is entirely non-apologetic about it (he took all the colored pencils at once and held them together in both hands and drew with them all at once, then earnestly explained that he could not possibly share with the other children because if he did he couldn't draw with all the pencils at once, so, well, that's a real shame for the other kids and all. Maybe they could get some other pencils from the cupboard?) . He has some baby ways of speaking still which seem to be improving; if they don't get better they may send him for a speech screening. (He does have this, in English, too. It worries me a little; but he was also a bit late talking so I have just decided to wait and keep an eye on it.)

But he's just awfully cute and charming. He loves to work and asks for new work constantly.

I suggested they throw him in a barrel and feed him through the....

No, I didn't.

They note that Douwe and Daan speak English to each other at school, which surprises me.

How do you throw away a garbage can?

Well, in my case, you drill holes in the bottom and use it for compost.

My goodness, you would think I was expecting spring or something wouldn't you?

Updates

Well, Daan got over being sick and Douwe took his place in line, and I haven't slept through the night in, I dunno, a week. My kids are not debilitated by viral illnesses with fever; but I am -- they only have to do it once each after all. (wah).

We now have a wireless network so Dearly Beloved is playing the latest in a series of sixty gajillion games of Go (and that's only since this morning) right now as I type. And the likelihood that we will both survive to see our anniversary in May has increased while the likelihood that I will collect a rather large life insurance policy and check out life as a Merry Widow has decreased. Erahem.

He is a very good Go player. He will no doubt by the end of this month achieve tournament level status and also enlightenment. Because he will now likely survive to do it. Erahem again.

Dearly Beloved is also planning to return to school and become a teacher of physics and/or maths -- simultaneously or seriatum, I am not sure which. I gather that he can get a teaching certificate in about 6 to 8 months in physics (having had more formal training in physics than ought to be strictly legal) and about a year in maths. This will, it is devoutly to be hoped, settle his nerves and get some kind of regular income moving through here (the latter leading to the former you understand). This can only be a good thing.

I expect to be on this computer a lot in the next few days, as I have a lot of work to do. So I will probably blog a lot to get out of it. Maybe I'll even tell you what I think about the big Cartoon Controversey. Bwah ha hah.

I have baby lettuces and spinach in my fish tank, er, cold frame. Spring may come some day after all. No person living in 40/50 degree weather may speak to me about cold and dark, grrr.

Okay, I lie, it's been mostly a mild winter. But not 50 degrees, no indeedy.

Pathetic

If there is anything more pathetic than Daan with a cold and fever, I am unsure what it might be. He's even cute when his face is all pink and his eyes are glassy from being sick. He laid in his bed and said that he wanted to put on his mittens and his boots and his coat and go out in the snow. In this little croaky half asleep baby voice. Complete with lisping I must say.

Then he fell asleep. Good thing, too, it's above freezing and the snow didn't stick.

Moving along

On Friday the nice lady from the Speech School who is going to coordinate the acquiring and so on of services to Douwe came over to talk to us. She seems very nice.

Paul did most of the talking and periodic translating, as otherwise I come off entirely insane. It is difficult to explain how we got where we are today to people who are used to things going a certain way if, well, they did not go that way at all. It has taken me some time to work this out.

Here's the certain way: Child goes to school. Teachers or doctor notice something a bit odd. Teachers or doctor mention this to parents. School-associated specialist is called in. Some testing perhaps, conducted by the school. Meeting with parents at which recommendations are made. School fills out paperwork with some input from parents. Recommendation is made for in-place special ed support or referral to a school for specific special needs. Decision is made, yes/no. If yes, parents are given informational interview regarding options, teachers and specialists meet and decide on services to be provided.

Here's our way: Parent goes to school to tell school about child's issues. Teacher dismisses concerns. Several weeks later, teacher notes that indeed there is something odd. School associated specialists are called in. Some testing conducted by the school. Meeting with parents at which recommendations are made denying speech services and recommending special needs school. Parents entirely reject recommendation and instead seek private speech therapy. Many meetings between parents and school (and evidently at school about parents and occasionally even about child). Parents decide to change schools. Parents locate special needs school in the area they think their child has a problem. Parents fill out paperwork and arrange testing. Schools fill out paperwork at request of parents. Decision is made. Informational interview is scheduled.

This nice lady called up Douwe's teacher (who by rights should be the one coordinating the application for special needs support) who said something to the effect that, "Well, I'm not sure he needs any. We could use some advice in dealing with him in certain areas, but he seems to be doing just fine. What are we supposed to do again?"

So then she called us and came over. And I said something to the effect that "Well, his fine motor skills are good, but he has real issues with fine motor planning and also visual motor integration. One of the great ironies of being Douwe is that he has a strongly auditory learning style but he also has a language disorder. So he falls back on kinetic learning. His visual memory is good but not terrifying; his auditory memory is terrifyingly good. His phonics are pretty iffy when tested, because he has a bad way of crossing up his languages. But his reading skills are good. He does rely a great deal on nonverbal information so if he cannot see your face and upper body you have usually lost his attention. But I have no real idea what services he needs in the classroom as I have never had to try to teach him anything in a room with twenty some odd other kids in it. I do think he needs to be taught to read by a person who reads Dutch better than I do, because I am teaching him to read in English right now and it does help".

Poor lady. Luckily for her I didn't get to say that all at once as there were translation issues.

She did say that she feared that if I taught him to read English he might at some time confuse the grammar of the two languages; so maybe I ought to stop. Uh huh. You now, everyone fears that at every step of the way but it never actually happens. Well, anyway, if he does, then I'll stop. *Whoops*, then it'll be too late and somebody will just have to teach him to read dutch so he doesn't confuse them any more.

And the big recommendation of the day was to sign him up for some kind of activity. Like a club or something. Because....? I never got that, maybe there was a because I missed. Because it will give him new people to talk to?

However, this lady will not actually be providing the services as I understand it; her job is organizational and so on. She helps get the Plan of Action written as I understand it. Next she meets with the teachers and principal of Douwe's school. Then we all meet together and write up the Plan of Action. Then we'll see what happens where the rubber meets the road.

But I have this feeling I am going to be written up in yet another file as a pain in the ass mother. Maybe not. We'll see about that, too.

Plant Talk

I got my nose out of my seed catalog long enough to order, so that's good. Before I did, I went back to the local shop just to be sure the prices were in line and the selection was as bad as I remembered. Bleah. It was worse.

I did buy some spinach and greens thingies to put in my cold frame. My cold frame, for those of you who do not know, is actually Ernest's former enormous fish tank with dirt in it. It's good for growing things with shallow roots which do not have to live very long, like lettuces and so on.

I was going to entirely ignore Dearly Beloved's stated preference for cutting flowers in the garden except that, well, they had California poppies and I just couldn't resist. ANd black eyed susans which I love.

My rooftop garden overlooks the patio below and there is a drop of about, oh, twelve or fifteen feet. I am considering trying a blackberry hedge there, like my grandfather had coming over his fence, but I don't know if it will work with the blackberries in a container. I sort of like the idea for other than sentimental reasons, to wit: covering the drop with thorny vines will surely keep the Wild Boys away from it. Would a climbing rose be as happy going down as going up?

While I was hunting around on the web I found the most interesting thing. There is a website on which people who collect seed and grow from seed trade seed. It appears that if you have seed you just put up a listing of what you have; and if you need it you put up a listing asking for it. I may give it a whirl and see how it works out.

Since anybody who does that is likely to be a serious gardener I may also ask of anybody ever heard of dwarf cherries; I can't find any evidence that they exist in Holland and I would surely like to have a couple.

Bragging

I will have you know that I was invited to go for coffee at the home of one of the mothers of one of the kids at Douwe's school today.

My God, social contact with a human, I hardly know what to say.

No, she isn't Dutch*. She's at a guess from India or thereabouts. Her English has that musical British quality which I associate with India anyway.

But unquestionably human. We have chatted a bit about this-es and thats on the playground at pickup time. We both come from large Catholic families so I suppose we can talk about that for the first two years.

*I think the Dutch aren't allowed to invite you home until you have lived here about a hundred years, seems I read that rule someplace. Well, except during Carnival, then they invite you home a lot but that's different and I am too old for that.

Temper, temper

After another weekend involving some frustration over our similarities*, I shared with my spouse that unless he wants to pencil in the very first knock down drag out no hold barred bring out the big guns quarrel of our marriage I recommended in the strongest possible terms that we get on the stick about installing a wireless network.

He looked thoughtful for a moment and said he would do it tomorrow.

I pointed out that if he did it tomorrow then neither of us could work while he was installing things and debugging things and cursing Bill Gates' name and descendants and otherwise swearing in the seven languages in which he can swear.

He looked more thoughtful and said he would do it this week.

Quite possibly the only person on earth who respects the extremities to which their spouse might go in a fit of real temper more than I do, is Dearly Beloved.

So I expect he will do it. This is a good thing because if I actually expressed the annoyance I have felt for the last several days we might see an earthquake in Alaska.

Oh, really? Whoops.

*to wit: when we have work to do we both expect to sit down and do it without stopping and furthermore expect that somebody else, that is, the other one, entertain the children and shove food at them every two hours. The problems of this obsessive style of operating are obvious if you both want to work and you have only one computer.

Nota Bene

As some of you know, I bowed to extreme pressure and allowed my spouse and mother in law to start in on Douwe about his eating habits. After some initial *ahem* boundary setting (read, the child declared war and burned the ground and salted the ground after he burned it, then decided it wasn't worth the trouble and went along) this has worked out fine. I still think it was stupid, but it wasn't so stupid as to be harmful and god knows I do my share of stupid parent tricks.

So guess who got in on the "I don't eat" act? C'mon, guess.

Got it in one. And if Douwe is stubborn, Daan is implacable. Daan, when he sets his mind to it, makes Dowue look easygoing (though he is less dramatic about it. And does it far less often). Some of you may recall that Daan never took a bottle in his life. Never. Not ever. Douwe screamed and hollered and carried on and threw fits and then when it became clear that there was no other option he went along. Daan? Well, may I just say that my mother, battle hardened veteran of six children and four grandchildren, only ever called anybody once about a baby who wouldn't settle down. And that grandbaby was Daan.

So here's how little Daan has solved his problem: every single night for about a week, Daan has had either his father or his grandmother and sometimes both feeding him the bulk of his dinner.

I did not feed that child his dinner when he was an infant. As soon as he could get his food to his mouth he fed himself. He liked it. So I spread a sheet to protect the floor and let him have at it.

So now he's 4. And he is eating right out of their hands. And they like it. Or at least they don't seem to mind.

I have sat in secret admiration while he managed this little feat, I must say. I hope he hasn't noticed, though. I might be next you know.

School update

Well, so I went to Douwe's school and told them he had qualified for special ed. They said "Great! Now what do we do?"

Um.

I had rather hoped that they would tell me. Or at least make some suggestions.

What I did not say was ,"Well how the fuck am I supposed to know? I still haven't figured out what the names of all the agencies I am regularly corresponding with actually mean."

So of course I got on the phone and I made my spouse get on the phone (because at least one of the people I called is difficult for me to understand on the telephone) and then we told everybody what to do.

I have no idea whether what we told them to do is what we are supposed to do or not. I expect if it is not, someone will let us know.

So the next thing is, the speech school will assign us somebody to coordinate getting the services Douwe needs to Douwe. We will then all have a nice little meeting to write it all down with targets and goals and so on and then the coordinator will find the people who will come.

If this sounds a lot like an IEP meeting this is either the merest coincidence or it's because it's what I am familiar with and everybody was looking at me so it's what I came up with. It is my sincerest hope, however, that the coordinator has some suggestions about what services might be useful. Otherwise I'm going to have to make it up and try to resemble someone who has some idea what she is talking about.

However, I must point out that everyone who comes in contact with my child has commented that his speech has advanced quite markedly again in the past three weeks or so. If you would like to go back and look you will find that almost exactly three weeks ago Douwe started to read and this started him off wanting to write things down. I do not think this is a coincidence; I read a lot about this possibility and it is why I discarded my tendency to let things happen instead of pushing them.

So I expect that number one on my list will be somebody to teach him to read and write in Dutch. I really think I should not, I won't unless I just have to.

Okay, so it's February

So what am I doing looking at a seed catalog? Well, I figured (as I do every year actually) that I would start some plants from seed this year. I already have some bell peppers and some kind of squash, which I have by virtue of having kept them when I was cooking. I could probably get tomatoes this way too except that I almost never use fresh tomatoes and I doubt the canned ones would sprout.

But this is a non-approved way of acquiring seeds. So I went to the local, er, farming store I suppose and looked at what they had. Which was not much. Nobody in Holland is seeding right now which ought to give me a clue.

Of course it did not, don't be silly.

So I asked a firend, which is what you do when you have no idea what to do. And she sent me the link to a seed place.

Oh. My. God.

There are 47 pages of just vegetables. I haven't even got to the fruits yet and the flowers will probably take until May when I can seed directly in the ground. I expected the 47 billion varieties of string bean, as the Dutch are mad for beans. I didnot expect to encounter vegetables I never heard of before. The first thing on the list is called an Aardaker, lathyrus tuberosus, which is apparently a root vegetable of which I have never ever heard a word. So I looked it up. There is some debate about whether it is a vegetable or an herb but no argument that it is used to flavor whiskey. An Alsempeer translates as a bitter melon and comes from south america. They say it tastes like hell but has near magical blood sugar lowering qualities. And further more -- they have six different varieties to choose from.

I promise not to go out of the "A"s, though, this is a very large catalog. Clearly I have friends with very discriminating tastes. Hey, I was getting my seeds from the vegetables at the local grocery store, my head is spinning.

They have about seventy kinds of pumpkin, and incude the butternut squash as a variety of pumpkin oddly enough. Only a few of the kinds of pumpkin they list are intended to be eaten, though, and less than five appear to be pie pumpkins so the selection there should be simple.

On the other hand, I may not get to watermelon in time to plant watermelon.

Hey, dad, get that look off your face, it's a big roof. Well, no, I don't actually know anyone who ever tried watermelon in a container but a girl's gotta have an ambition. Watermelon and pumpkin vines on the same roof seems ambitious to me.

Anyway, I'd love to write more but I have to go read my seed catalog. I may never stop reading it long enough to actually order anything.

The letter

Douwe's tooth came out today. He could not however put it under his pillow because he promptly swallowed it. So I told him he could draw a picture of it for the tooth fairy.

He drew a row of teeth with one gap in it. Then he wrote "Tontte" under that, which was probably an effort at "tand", the dutch word for tooth. The he realized he had written the words upside down and started laughing. He said "She will think they are all gone," apparently referring to the tooth fairy. So he started over, drew the teeth again, thought a minute and wrote "totth".

He then announced he was going to read his letter. He held it at arm's length, and said "This is something new! First it was loose. Then it fell out. Douwe".

Then he put it under his pillow.

He is ever so pleased with himself. Especially since the tooth next to the one that just fell out is also loose.

Douwe was very difficult this evening

very emotional, sort of weepy and pissed off at the same time. So he went early to bed, voluntarily as he agreed that he needed to be alone for a bit. He took a nice bath adn got into his jammies and crawled in bed with a book.

Then confessed (while looking fixedly at his book) that there was something bothering him. And he didn't know if he was happy or scared.

It appears Douwe has his first loose tooth.

He decided he was both. But upon hearing about the tooth fairy he decided it was on balance a good thing.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

Happy Chinese New Year. Today is the first day of Chinese New Year, which starts with the second new moon after winter solstice; the last day is about 2 weeks from now, with the full moon. From now on, the days are supposed to get longer and longer, which would be nice.

This is the year of the dog. Celebrate the new year, have your chinese horoscope done, Here.

A girl's best friend

I mean really a girl's best friend. Or her mother or husband or whatever. Even her pet.

There is a company, here, which will take the earthly remains of your loved ones (human or otherwise) and turn them into a diamond.

Well, if you choose your burial site wisely, I suppose you could also have it done for free. But it would take about a billion gazillion years or so. And heaven only knows who would end up with your earthly remains then.

However, you can arrange to have it done by the wonders of modern technology in just about 24 weeks.

If you want to save on costs however (at two thousand bucks for the smallest one, diamonds are pricey) you can also evidently buy jewelry items which are hollow to hold the ashes of your loved ones. You can even get a rosary if you like.

Sometimes I wonder if Google is really a good thing. However, it does certainly lead one to look at things one otherwise never would have thought about. When I encountered this site, I then went to look up some Victorian memorial jewelry, which was mostly made from the hair of the departed. Here in Holland, though, it was apparently more common to make a picture out of hair and hang it on the wall.

I have no objection to any of this, and it is not my intention to mock. Well, except for one thing, I must say that there is reference on this website to the jewelry as a conversation piece. My own feeling is that it might be more a conversation stopper than starter. I mean, what does a relative stranger say when you explain that your earrings are really your deceased spouse?

Or your nose ring, which is what I suggested to my spouse he had in store. He made a reciprocal suggestion about where I should wear a diamond made from his earthly remains. Which suggestion should almost certainly not be repeated in mixed company.

Nel said that given a choice she would still rather become a flower, but said we were welcome to do anything we liked with her mortal coil as she would have no further use for it then.

I am personally still holding out for becoming a nice bell pepper or a tomato, now that the Holy See says we can be cremated, too. Maybe a thyme plant, nobody can kill one after all.

However, I shall have to remarry to pull it off, as I think my spouse's famously vivid imagination is not up to actually harvesting food fertilized with my ashes. Or outlive him, as if my kids remain the bloodthirsty little beasts they are now, they will happily toss me into a nice bolognese sauce.

Time, time, time, see what's become of me, indeed.

A word of advice

Just a word, apropos of nothing.

If it is cold where you are, that is to say, hovering right around freezing with a wind from the northeast* and your nevertheless take your children to the park to fly kites** because you are after all the proud owner of the finest silk long underwear known to man+ and furthermore you have a Really Good Coat ++ and so on.

If all of this is true, may I offer you this advice. However much you really like them, do not wear your red canvas high tops just on a whim.

It's not that it's a frivolous whim. It's that it's a really stupid whim.

Ask me how I know.

*quick, what's northeast of Holland? Right. Really Very Cold Places.

** despite the fact that the wind is not steady enough to fly a kite, but you figure that means they will have to run all over the field to keep the kites up and that's good in terms of wearing them out.

+they are called SilkJohns. Get some now. Can't beat 'em. Seriously.

++ bought for you as a gift from your spouse when you went to Tahoe, almost exactly one month before everything went to shit with his job and you still had That Kind of Money. Good instincts, dear.

School update

Douwe has officially qualified for special ed funding. Well, it's sort of confusing, because he didn't qualify for his language disorder. His language issues are no longer bad enough to be classified as special ed. However, he then got in the back door, catch all exception. Which is, that his performance at school is not commensurate with his ability as measured by the various tests he has now taken, and the language disorder clearly plays into that.

They then tossed in a note which says that it is not clear that this gap would not be bridged by some simple accomodations at the individual classroom level (double negatives really suck, by the way and especially if you are having trouble reasing the sentence anyway) but that it would be in the opinion of the muckety mucks in charge "irresponsible" to wait and see in this case.

I thought that was a strange word to choose somehow which is why it's in quotes. I'm not sure why I think that.

What this means in practice is that we can either enroll him in the speech school or that his current school will get extra money every year (about 4K euros per year, for the nosy amoung us, *grin*) to pay for whatever extra help he may need along the way. How that exactly works is unclear to me; though I am sure I will be finding out soon.

The grant is good for three years. So the interminable testing is now over, at leat for three years, and all that's left is that he has to go back to the neurologist every year for followup. Since his neurologist is the only really helpful person I have met so far, I am not unhappy about this.

We will be keeping him at the Montessori school; it would require a very serious inducement to persuade me to subject the poor child to another school change. I am very much enjoying his current unfrightened, unanxious self and have no desire to provoke the return of that scared little kid I had on my hands for so long.

I have no idea really what plans the school has for this money, but I have no doubt they will come up with something. I would, in their place. I am also pleased because I have been concerned about the possibility that he might be kept back in Kindy because of the language problem and I think this development decreases that possibility.

Bet you didn't know

Today is the feast day of St. Agnes, virgin and martyr. She is one of the seven women in the canon of the mass, a list which bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain pagan assembly of women. Well, you tell me: Agnes (purity), Cecelia (music), Felicity (happiness), Perpetua (steadfastness), Agatha (goodness), Lucia (light), Anastasia (resurrection). Sound like any other group you know of?

On the Eve of Saint Agnes, the story goes, girls can find out their future by plucking pins, repeating an Our Father, and then dreaming of their destiny. For more specific questions, wrapped fruitcake is put under her pillow tonight to cause her to dream of her future husband. In Germany anyway. In England, she is to go to bed without eating and also without looking behind her back in which case she will dream of her future husband; but English girls, always practical, are informed that they will know which man it is by the fact that in this dream she will eat with him. The other guys hanging around in the dream are just for show. German girls, it appears, only dream of one.

You guys think I am kidding, but I have this stuff on the best authority. Google "The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats, you'll see. It's in verse 6, for those of you who cannot plow through Keats.
Mary J, are you listening? Got any fruitcake?

Other than your eldest sister I mean.

Also, do remember in future that english girls are far more likely to be fun at a party than german ones.

Speaking of whom, (of whom was I speaking?) does this rendition of the blessed mother with St. Agnes (she's on the right, the one with the sheep) resemble my youngest sister or not?

I mean the blessed mother looks like Mary J, not Agnes. Agnes looks insipid, she always looks insipid. I never could figure out why, I think it must have taken quite a little butt kicker to volunteer for martyrdom at the age of 13. It isn't as though she had no chance to back out, they tried to kill her off three times before she actually died on the third try.

And they sent her off to a brothrel first, though her virginity is said to have been, um, preserved by God. Not the way you think. Because despite, er, dedicated effort, nobody could manage, as 'twere. Seriously, that's the story I got. Sort of the reverse of an Iron Maiden I suppose.

It must be noted that her original feast was on January 28, her birthday. This was changed during Vatican II to the date of her martyrdom. She was then one week short of 14. How we know any of this is a mystery to me also, as she died in the 2 or 300's AD.

Whaddaya mean, they made it up?

Interesting

We have just run into a translation problem of a new kind. It is this: there appears to be no exact cognate in Dutch of the word embarassed when the embarassing thing is not also shameful. All the translations the three of us could come up with involved shame, awareness of (morally speaking) fault.

We were talking about Douwe's little adventure yesterday and I tried to say that in speaking of leaving the school to go home, he was not ashamed of having left; he still thinks he was right on. But he is embarassed that he made his little friend's mother so frightened; he had not expected that and was, well, embarassed.

And I couldn't say it. Neither could anyone else for that matter. Closest we could get was things involving the concept of "regret".

First heartbreak

Daan has learned many new things this week. Today he learned something he really did not like. It was this: while Douwe's friends may like him, they don't always want him to come over to their houses to play, too.

This was hard to learn.

And the mother of Douwe's little friend learned something, too. If you leave Douwe and his little friend on the playground alone because you have a meeting inside the school and you figure it'll only be a minute anyway, you have to tell Douwe very explicitly that if he needs anything he is to come and get you first.

If you do not, and he doesn't know where you are, he may decide that he had better walk home.

Luckily the little friend went and got his mother instead of accompanying him, so he didn't get far.

All in all a most educational day.

Hurrah

Set out the flags, the tsunami of toys which my children have received at regular intervals since October has finally been tamed. You can see the floor in their room and everything.

Both my kids are pretty good about picking up, but not if the room isn't organized in a way that makes sense to them. Which is not the same as "makes sense to me" so sometimes I have to think about things a bit. The duplo Thomas train goes, I am told, with the lego and duplo blocks and not with the trains. The playmobil airplanes on the other hand, go with the helicopter and the cars and trains, not with the playmobil. All the swords, shields, and and so on go with the toy castle and the toy dragons and not with the dress up stuff. But the paper marionettes go in the library which otherwise contains nothing but books and an easel.

I am compliant because, well, it means they will actually put their stuff away. About which to date I have had nothing to complain about really. Well, other than that they resolutely refuse to put their clothes in any form of hamper*. I think they are as yet too young to pull the "in the hamper or not washed" thing; they would both happily go to school in dirty clothes. Since I am more invested than they are, picking up their clothes falls to me.

And taming the tsunami only took about 2 days, lol. Now to start on the piles of paper we have accumulated somehow.

* Of course, I have heard it said that there are adult men who also suffer from a sad disability, to wit, inability to perceive the existence of a clothes hamper for dirty clothes. I would not of course know any personally but I have heard that somewhere it seems to me.