Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Monday, October 15, 2001
Back from The Netherlands
I went to visit my family in the Netherlands for a few days. It was a very fast visit. I left Tuesday, arrived in the Netherlands on Wednesday. Spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday there, and flew back on Sunday. So two days of traveling for a four days stay. Wow! It was so short because my MIL came over to take care of my oldest five and she could only stay for a week.
My father is not doing well, he has Parkinsons and prostrate cancer which has spread to his hips and his mind is more and more wandering. He has been in a nursing home for about 6 months now. I think this is the last time I have seen him in this life :-( I was OK with that when I was there, but now I am home, I am depressed about it all. Have been really sad today, maybe after the high of the trip, it is hard to get back to 'normal'. I visited him on four days, the only time I was sure that he knew who I was, was on the fourth day. The other days he was so out of it that I didn't think he recognized me.
I had Erik with me on the trip. He did well, apart from protesting a lot when I put him in his car seat in the plane. It was a looooong plane trip with a fussy, tired baby, but we did it. Flying was interesting. I had been a bit worried about it, after 9/11, but wasn't really worried while flying. I think I used up all my worrying when trying to make the decision to go or not. And having to try to keep Erik happy (or at least not too unhappy) took all my energy, no energy left to worry :-)
There was some increased security, but not as much as I had expected. I had selected a non American carrier, to minimize my risks. So I ended up with a lay over at Iceland, which I thought was worth it as opposed to a direct flight with an American carrier. Flying out of Boston had me show my passport more than usual, and an extra check on combination boarding pass / passport before entering the plane, but that was about it. Flying back from Amsterdam I had to be security cleared and somebody opened my suitcase and asked me some questions, but not that many either. The most security was when I flew back from Iceland to Boston. They boarded the plane really late and they searched all the carry-on luggage and did an extra weapon check just before we could board. It made the plane late and I arrived home midnight last night instead of 10pm I had hoped for. Oh well.
It was nice to show off Erik to family and friends and to meet some of them again. The weather was gorgeous, unusual for the Netherlands in this time of year. It was also nice to pick up lots of Dutch goodies, my suit case on the way back was packed with them.
Cees knew his grandfather is not doing well and when I phoned home he asked me 'Was grandpa still alive when you saw him? And when you left him, did you look really carefully to make sure he was still alive?' :-(
It was a short trip, but I am glad I went anyway. Erik is happy to be home again, I think he missed his siblings. He has been smiling at them and playing with them the whole day today. The kids were happy to have me home again, and were even more happy about the Dutch stuff I got them :-) Erik and I both are jet lagged, which is to be expected. As I said, I am depressed today, which I had not expected.
Still I think it was good that I went and saw my dad a final time. I am glad I had the opportunity.
My father is not doing well, he has Parkinsons and prostrate cancer which has spread to his hips and his mind is more and more wandering. He has been in a nursing home for about 6 months now. I think this is the last time I have seen him in this life :-( I was OK with that when I was there, but now I am home, I am depressed about it all. Have been really sad today, maybe after the high of the trip, it is hard to get back to 'normal'. I visited him on four days, the only time I was sure that he knew who I was, was on the fourth day. The other days he was so out of it that I didn't think he recognized me.
I had Erik with me on the trip. He did well, apart from protesting a lot when I put him in his car seat in the plane. It was a looooong plane trip with a fussy, tired baby, but we did it. Flying was interesting. I had been a bit worried about it, after 9/11, but wasn't really worried while flying. I think I used up all my worrying when trying to make the decision to go or not. And having to try to keep Erik happy (or at least not too unhappy) took all my energy, no energy left to worry :-)
There was some increased security, but not as much as I had expected. I had selected a non American carrier, to minimize my risks. So I ended up with a lay over at Iceland, which I thought was worth it as opposed to a direct flight with an American carrier. Flying out of Boston had me show my passport more than usual, and an extra check on combination boarding pass / passport before entering the plane, but that was about it. Flying back from Amsterdam I had to be security cleared and somebody opened my suitcase and asked me some questions, but not that many either. The most security was when I flew back from Iceland to Boston. They boarded the plane really late and they searched all the carry-on luggage and did an extra weapon check just before we could board. It made the plane late and I arrived home midnight last night instead of 10pm I had hoped for. Oh well.
It was nice to show off Erik to family and friends and to meet some of them again. The weather was gorgeous, unusual for the Netherlands in this time of year. It was also nice to pick up lots of Dutch goodies, my suit case on the way back was packed with them.
Cees knew his grandfather is not doing well and when I phoned home he asked me 'Was grandpa still alive when you saw him? And when you left him, did you look really carefully to make sure he was still alive?' :-(
It was a short trip, but I am glad I went anyway. Erik is happy to be home again, I think he missed his siblings. He has been smiling at them and playing with them the whole day today. The kids were happy to have me home again, and were even more happy about the Dutch stuff I got them :-) Erik and I both are jet lagged, which is to be expected. As I said, I am depressed today, which I had not expected.
Still I think it was good that I went and saw my dad a final time. I am glad I had the opportunity.
Monday, December 27, 1999
Yet Another One of Those Milestones.... (9mo)
Kate, at 9 months old, reached another milestone today: 'First Time to Throw an Object
in the Toilet'..... It was a piece of a puzzle....
Oh well, it is better than when Tara threw our tooth brushes in there
a few years ago :p
in the Toilet'..... It was a piece of a puzzle....
Oh well, it is better than when Tara threw our tooth brushes in there
a few years ago :p
Wednesday, December 22, 1999
Our First Family Winter Solstice
We had fun celebrating the winter solstice for the very first time ever. I am trying to build a set of rituals that the kids later will remember with fondness. For the good doing part, we went to the supermarket, where somebody was collecting money for the local hospital. We came in and he told me that they needed $3 to reach $2000, so of course, I gave him that. He immediately exclaimed happily through the whole supermarket, and went to call the radio station, after asking for our names. So that was fun. The rest of the supermarket visit was kind of badly timed, culminating in Timmy toppling over with cart and all, but I won't elaborate on that... :-)
During the afternoon, we went outside to collect sticks for our solstice fire. Cees was the only one who was focused on that, the other ones were wandering around, doing all kinds of things, once in a while remembering to get some sticks. But I got them all to contribute some, I didn't really care how much, I just liked the symbolism of everybody contributing to the fire. I also had normal logs for the fire, but figured we could use the sticks to start the fire, before we put a big log on it.
Back inside and trying to lit the fire. Well, that was were some little complications came in. Let's say that I am not a natural talent in the lighting of fires! LOL I think one of the problems was that the sticks from outside were not too dry yet, and I used newspapers which burned perfectly, but did nothing to light the sticks.... After a while I distracted the kids with a snack (by candlelight!), while I kept on struggling. Somehow this is not what I had envisioned when I planned a solstice fire LOL
After about an hour and getting some wood from our basement, which was really dry, I finally got the fire going! During the trying part, I kept having a baby who tried to climb all over me in the hope or reaching this very interested fire place! I still didn't really believe that it would stay burning, but it did, so slowly, I started
to relax ahout it. The kids were all ready to roast marshmellows, which they did for quite a while. They don't really have the patience for it, it was like keeping the marshmallow on a stick there for a few seconds, declaring it was done now, and happily eating it LOL. But they had tons of fun with it, which was my main goal. And by that time it was dark, so the fire looked really good.
Sander came home, and immediately started worrying about our house being burned down by the fire. I tried to reassure him, but he wasn't too convinced LOL
We had dinner by candlelight, which the kids loved. We ate French toast, which is a favorite of all the kids, and which we had chosen because it contains eggs, which symbolized a new start to us, the start of the days getting longer again.
After dinner there was supposed to be a solstice cake with a sun on it, but somehow I hadn't gotten around to baking it.... So we sent the kids off to play, I put the baby to bed and I sneaked out to the supermarket to get a ready made cake... (about 4 people in there commented on me being there without any kids!). Came home, used yellow frosting to put a sun on this chocolate cake, and then put seven candles on it, one for every member of the family.
It looked great and the kids were all excited about it. We extinguished all the lights, and talked about noticing how dark it was and that this was the longest night of the year. But (and then I lit a match), the sun was coming back again and these candles symbolized the return of the sun, making every day a little bit longer from now on.
I named all the family member names while I lighted the candles. We sang 'Happy Solstice To You!' together and then the kids worked together to blow out all the candles. We ate the cake together and then it was off to bed for the kids.
At night, Sander and I had planned our private celebration in front of the fire. I had picked up some champaign and chocolate in the supermarket and we were all ready for it, but kept getting interrupted by a worried Cees, who came downstairs asking how we would be sure that the fire went out and how he couldn't sleep because the fire was on.... When we still hadn't be able to get anything going around 1:30am and Cees came down for the x-th time, we decided that going to bed would be nice too LOL.
Sander extinguished the fire with some water, to reassure Cees, and we were off to bed, where we did have some solstice fun after all :-)
Like I said, this was the first time we did it and we had to make it up as we went, but I think it definitely was a success. I did some reading about solstice rituals and chose the things that I thought would work for us. I think we might get more elaborate overthe years, but for now, this was a good start.
During the afternoon, we went outside to collect sticks for our solstice fire. Cees was the only one who was focused on that, the other ones were wandering around, doing all kinds of things, once in a while remembering to get some sticks. But I got them all to contribute some, I didn't really care how much, I just liked the symbolism of everybody contributing to the fire. I also had normal logs for the fire, but figured we could use the sticks to start the fire, before we put a big log on it.
Back inside and trying to lit the fire. Well, that was were some little complications came in. Let's say that I am not a natural talent in the lighting of fires! LOL I think one of the problems was that the sticks from outside were not too dry yet, and I used newspapers which burned perfectly, but did nothing to light the sticks.... After a while I distracted the kids with a snack (by candlelight!), while I kept on struggling. Somehow this is not what I had envisioned when I planned a solstice fire LOL
After about an hour and getting some wood from our basement, which was really dry, I finally got the fire going! During the trying part, I kept having a baby who tried to climb all over me in the hope or reaching this very interested fire place! I still didn't really believe that it would stay burning, but it did, so slowly, I started
to relax ahout it. The kids were all ready to roast marshmellows, which they did for quite a while. They don't really have the patience for it, it was like keeping the marshmallow on a stick there for a few seconds, declaring it was done now, and happily eating it LOL. But they had tons of fun with it, which was my main goal. And by that time it was dark, so the fire looked really good.
Sander came home, and immediately started worrying about our house being burned down by the fire. I tried to reassure him, but he wasn't too convinced LOL
We had dinner by candlelight, which the kids loved. We ate French toast, which is a favorite of all the kids, and which we had chosen because it contains eggs, which symbolized a new start to us, the start of the days getting longer again.
After dinner there was supposed to be a solstice cake with a sun on it, but somehow I hadn't gotten around to baking it.... So we sent the kids off to play, I put the baby to bed and I sneaked out to the supermarket to get a ready made cake... (about 4 people in there commented on me being there without any kids!). Came home, used yellow frosting to put a sun on this chocolate cake, and then put seven candles on it, one for every member of the family.
It looked great and the kids were all excited about it. We extinguished all the lights, and talked about noticing how dark it was and that this was the longest night of the year. But (and then I lit a match), the sun was coming back again and these candles symbolized the return of the sun, making every day a little bit longer from now on.
I named all the family member names while I lighted the candles. We sang 'Happy Solstice To You!' together and then the kids worked together to blow out all the candles. We ate the cake together and then it was off to bed for the kids.
At night, Sander and I had planned our private celebration in front of the fire. I had picked up some champaign and chocolate in the supermarket and we were all ready for it, but kept getting interrupted by a worried Cees, who came downstairs asking how we would be sure that the fire went out and how he couldn't sleep because the fire was on.... When we still hadn't be able to get anything going around 1:30am and Cees came down for the x-th time, we decided that going to bed would be nice too LOL.
Sander extinguished the fire with some water, to reassure Cees, and we were off to bed, where we did have some solstice fun after all :-)
Like I said, this was the first time we did it and we had to make it up as we went, but I think it definitely was a success. I did some reading about solstice rituals and chose the things that I thought would work for us. I think we might get more elaborate overthe years, but for now, this was a good start.
Tuesday, June 01, 1999
Kate's placenta
In November we bought this house, and we have a huge yard, but the gardening season was over by then (we are in New Hampshire) I did buy and put in a few hundred bulbs, but that was it. I was planning on doing lots of gardening this year. This weekend, I bought two apple trees, a cherry tree and a blueberry bush. Dh put them in and under one of the apples, we buried Kate's placenta! It feels like the closure of my pregnancy. And the apple tree is kind of Kate's tree now. He buried it really deep, because he was afraid a fox would dig it up :-)
We stored it in the freezer until we could bury it. When my inlaws stayed here for a few weeks in April, we pointed it out to them in the freezer and warned them not to eat it. They kind of freaked out.
This is the first time we had the opportunity to do this and it feels good. I will definitely do it for any further kids we have too. Now we just have to hope the apple tree won't die, that would kind of feel like a bad omen :-)
I did put in lots of other flowers, bulbs, herbs and veggies too, I love this big yard. Don't know how successful I will be yet, but it is fun to work in it. Although it sometimes is challenging to do it with 'help' of the kids.
We stored it in the freezer until we could bury it. When my inlaws stayed here for a few weeks in April, we pointed it out to them in the freezer and warned them not to eat it. They kind of freaked out.
This is the first time we had the opportunity to do this and it feels good. I will definitely do it for any further kids we have too. Now we just have to hope the apple tree won't die, that would kind of feel like a bad omen :-)
I did put in lots of other flowers, bulbs, herbs and veggies too, I love this big yard. Don't know how successful I will be yet, but it is fun to work in it. Although it sometimes is challenging to do it with 'help' of the kids.
Saturday, January 23, 1999
Walking Statistics
Statistics for no particular reason:
Kid #1 walked at 17mo
Kid #2 walked at 12mo
Kid #3 walked at 12mo
Kid #4 walked at 10mo
They are all different. Still, it makes me wonder about #5 :-)
Kid #1 walked at 17mo
Kid #2 walked at 12mo
Kid #3 walked at 12mo
Kid #4 walked at 10mo
They are all different. Still, it makes me wonder about #5 :-)
Friday, January 22, 1999
Wall Drawings
OK, Jane has entered the early creative phase of 'wall paintings'... She did it a few times in our rental with crayons, and we were able to get that off with a brush and some dish washing detergent (which was good, since we were just renting the house and it was on the market and had regular showings. We would not have been happy if it hadn't come off). We put all the crayons away and I think it happened only one or two more times, but not as excessively. She was very good in detecting crayons that one of the other kids had left laying around :-)
Now we are in our new house and it is ours and I have become less vigilant with the drawing utensils. The crayons are still out of reach, but we have lots of coloured pencils lying around that the boys use a lot and that Jane and Tara like to use to to draw on paper. But of course, the walls are so nice and freshly painted, that Jane sometimes can't resist it and starts drawing on them again... I haven't tried to get it off yet, but would welcome tips of how to do it. These are just painted walls, but I think the pencil would have to be taken off in a different way than crayons.
Sometimes I catch her running laughing out of the room where we keep the pencils, clutching a pencil tightly in her hands, and laughing hard when I try to get it away from her... Redirecting to paper sometimes helps, but not always. Another day I found both of the girls happily standing on Tara's bed, both having a pencil, having a ball drawing on that wall....
I have gotten very good at recognizing the sound of a pencil drawing on a wall :-)
Now we are in our new house and it is ours and I have become less vigilant with the drawing utensils. The crayons are still out of reach, but we have lots of coloured pencils lying around that the boys use a lot and that Jane and Tara like to use to to draw on paper. But of course, the walls are so nice and freshly painted, that Jane sometimes can't resist it and starts drawing on them again... I haven't tried to get it off yet, but would welcome tips of how to do it. These are just painted walls, but I think the pencil would have to be taken off in a different way than crayons.
Sometimes I catch her running laughing out of the room where we keep the pencils, clutching a pencil tightly in her hands, and laughing hard when I try to get it away from her... Redirecting to paper sometimes helps, but not always. Another day I found both of the girls happily standing on Tara's bed, both having a pencil, having a ball drawing on that wall....
I have gotten very good at recognizing the sound of a pencil drawing on a wall :-)
Jane can Jump!
Jane now is finally able to get off the ground!!!! For the longest time, she tried, and ended up 'jumping without getting off the ground'. So funny to watch!!!! :-)
Another skill down!
Another skill down!
Thursday, January 21, 1999
Leuke Lunch
Ik had vandaag de 'Dutch Luncheon' van de lokale 'International Womens Club'. Dat was waarvoor ik de drop nodig had, bedankt voor alle info, ik heb het op tijd kunnen krijgen. Het was een leuke lunch, ik ben blij dat ik gegaan ben. Ik gebruik de club om nieuwe contacten te maken, omdat we hier nog maar net naartoe verhuisd zijn. Ik heb zelfs een paar andere Nederlanders ontmoet!
De kinderen hebben zich uitstekend gedragen. Ik had een tas vol speelgoed en boeken meegebracht en dat hielp natuurlijk een hoop. Ik had nog wat klompen, dus 2 van de 4 liepen op klompen, voor een authentiek Nederlands tintje :-)
Ik kwam zelfs een andere Nederlandse tegen die ik jaren geleden in Vermont had ontmoet. We waren daar ooit een daagje geweest, toen ik nog maar 2 kinderen had. Daarna hadden we geen contact meer gehouden. Ik had haar leren kennen via een Amerikaanse email vriendin die zelf ook een tijdje in Nederland heeft gewoond. Heel leuk om haar plotseling daar weer terug te zien!
De kinderen hebben zich uitstekend gedragen. Ik had een tas vol speelgoed en boeken meegebracht en dat hielp natuurlijk een hoop. Ik had nog wat klompen, dus 2 van de 4 liepen op klompen, voor een authentiek Nederlands tintje :-)
Ik kwam zelfs een andere Nederlandse tegen die ik jaren geleden in Vermont had ontmoet. We waren daar ooit een daagje geweest, toen ik nog maar 2 kinderen had. Daarna hadden we geen contact meer gehouden. Ik had haar leren kennen via een Amerikaanse email vriendin die zelf ook een tijdje in Nederland heeft gewoond. Heel leuk om haar plotseling daar weer terug te zien!
Wednesday, January 20, 1999
Timmy and the medicine spoon.....
Just had a close call with Timmy and a medicine spoon. This morning, while eating breakfast, he found a medicine spoon lying around. You know one of the transparent tube ones, with a spoon at the end, used for giving a few teaspoons of medicine. I never considered those a particular safety hazard. Little did I know! :-) So Timmy found one and decided he would put his finger in it! And that wouldn't be so bad, weren't it for not being able to get it out again!!!
By the time he came over to me, the top was turning blue already! So I tried to get it off, but wasn't able to. It was REALLY stuck! I let him put his hand under cold streaming water, in the hope that that would help. Put liquid soap on it, let him elevate it, NOTHING! I just wasn't able to get it off. Tried calling Sander, but he was not at his desk. Then I called our ped's office. Felt kind of silly for calling for something like that, but I couldn't leave it on like this either. So I talked to a nurse, who told me to use lots of liquid dishwashing detergent on it and keep it elevated. Did that and after a few minutes, I finally was able to pull it off!!! Using considerable force! I was soooo relieved. The finger was turning more and more blue by then, so I saw us going off to the emergency room already.... After we got the spoon off, it turned nice and pink again within minutes.
Life is never boring!!!
By the time he came over to me, the top was turning blue already! So I tried to get it off, but wasn't able to. It was REALLY stuck! I let him put his hand under cold streaming water, in the hope that that would help. Put liquid soap on it, let him elevate it, NOTHING! I just wasn't able to get it off. Tried calling Sander, but he was not at his desk. Then I called our ped's office. Felt kind of silly for calling for something like that, but I couldn't leave it on like this either. So I talked to a nurse, who told me to use lots of liquid dishwashing detergent on it and keep it elevated. Did that and after a few minutes, I finally was able to pull it off!!! Using considerable force! I was soooo relieved. The finger was turning more and more blue by then, so I saw us going off to the emergency room already.... After we got the spoon off, it turned nice and pink again within minutes.
Life is never boring!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
