Being Lazy in the Spring

Up until Monday the weather has been so glorious that the thought of staying inside long enough to blog wasn't high on my list of things to do. Eileen has learned the way to the nearest playground and our neighbor's homes. She willingly runs to the backpack to be taken for walks.


Now is our second day of cooler temps and some rain, and having played the let's get out aggressions out in the bath with a splash war -- and dragged her to the grocery and the fish monger and the yarn shop, I am now trying to remember how we survived the long, dark, cold winter. What did I do before we had bubbles?

Other news: as spring becomes late spring, I am looking sadly at the fact that some of my local friends will be departing, but others will be arriving. PCS season has already started!

We are getting ready for our trip to the US in less than 3 weeks. We will hit DC and Chicago. Daughter number 1 will be wed at the end of the month of May and then we will return to the Netherlands.

Eileen --- Parks and the fearless baby

I am hardpressed to call Eileen a baby as anything more than a force of habit at this point. She tantrums. She uses words when she wants to (though lately we are grunting more and enunciating less). She runs, climbs, giggles.

As a woman living with her baby in the Netherlands, I have already told you that I have a bike seat for Eileen. We bike on a regular basis. Often to the park. This leads to the inevitable occasional tantrum while I am dutifully trying to put her into her bike seat and helmet to return home or run another errand.

But, this post is really about our visits to Uden's big park. As you recall, I live in the small town of Volkel -- a village, really. It has several playgrounds, but there is a giant series of playgrounds down Sportlaan in Uden. There are slides, a toddler area that is all in sand, a bunch of swings (though none of them baby swings), climbing equipment, even a fort on a tiny island with a wet moat that you must ford by rope bridge or single rope with a place for your hands. Not surprisingly, Eileen adores the place. Last week, we drove to the toddler area and met an Oma (grandma) and her granddaughter Millou. She said they went most days. So, we returned on Wednesday.

Too late, though, since school was out. So, Eileen, who like all toddlers is drawn to whatever the big kids are doing, faked me out, and ran for the 15 foot high ladder to the slide. ACK. So now she is ahead of me and on the third rung of the ladder with a bunch of school aged kids clambering up behind her. I had to push them out of the way to get to her, but that is fair considering how often she and I have been pushed aside by other school aged kids. We went down the slide together: whee!!!! Again, again. Twice more then we rode on to downtown in search of ice cream in a cupje (little cup) since it was still Passover. We failed and went home to our ice cream at home.

So, the question is, is there a switch in the head that will let her know when she is truly beyond her depth? If so, when does it switch on?

She has made the move to toddler swim class. And one of the little girls in the class runs fearlessly and flings herself into the water, even without her parent there. I know that Eileen would do the same if I didn't hold on ever so tightly to her wriggly little self.

Eileen grows and thrives

Happy Pesach or Chag Sameach gentle readers. Eileen went to visit her friend Doctor Jose Kokxhoorn at the Consultatiebureau for her 14 month well baby check this week. She is doing great. Pretty quick on the uptake. In fact, she raced all over the doctor's office trying to open drawers and grab mats and toys. She is now 19 pounds 5 1/2 ounces or 8775 grams. And she is 29.92 inches (or .76 meters -- roughly half my height).

I have discovered that the nursery school won't take Eileen until she is 2 years old, and since by then we will be worrying about our next duty assignment, I am instead looking to put her into day care for a half day 2 days a week. I could luxuriate in time to do laundry and clean house with out 'help' -- and even get to use chemicals to clean the bathrooms without major fear.

I must admit that since I did not ask for someone to watch Eileen this week, my house is not really kashered for the holiday. Instead we are just ignoring what Mom didn't get to do. The crackers and things are still on the shelves, so we just ignore the chammetz. Not a great solution, but it is what we did this year. Hopefully next year I will have her in the above-mentioned day care, and that will allow me to clean my little heart out. For those who don't know me that well, I really do like to clean my home, especially the deep clean for the holidays.

Scouts and Easter Flowers

My neighbors, specifically the buurvrouwen (the ladies of the neighborhood), have started doing flower arrangements twice a year together -- Easter and Christmas. So, Friday night I joined in arranging flowers. It was nice to actually understand a bit more than I did at Christmas, that said, most of the words that I recognized were not the ones with big impact (I recognized things like names, pronouns, definite and indefinite articles...an occasional verb). But, the flowers are lovely. They are in the laundry room, as that is somewhere Eileen can't reach them.

On our way back (at 10.30pm) from the neighbor's home, we found a bunch of 11 year old scouts roaming the neighborhood on some sort of treasure hunt. There was a candle signifying some sort of hint, clue, or token, right along the street. The kids were armed with a couple of flashlights. And they were about 1/4 mile from the scout house. But, it was something that I don't recall seeing even in our very safe suburbs growing up. Instead, I remember a similar scavenger/treasure hunt at night at O'Hare Field (back when you could go back to the gates, and when there were lockers in different wings and before the United Terminal 1 was built).