Slowly finding my way

A good portion of my life here is filled with frustration that I don't speak Dutch. Imagine being in the States and wanting to get information a topic and not speaking English. So, for the most part, using the phone terrifies me. I spend a lot of time on the Internet with my friend Google Translate. Here is where I say that 1) having a baby who has only slept through the night a handful of times in the past three months has hurt my meager ability to retain new words, 2) Rosetta Stone may be a good program, but I need to actually use it, 3) I am trying to sign up for language classes -- but waiting until my friend Dana gets back from the States.

I met with a woman from our local baby wellness bureau last week. She was impressed by how many toys we have -- and more than that, that we have books out for the baby. She was also caught off guard by the fact that Eileen immediately started to pull up on her to grab her papers (which I had to rescue three times before I finally suggested that maybe we needed to move them to a higher surface). My path forward can be one of the following: get all wellness baby things done at the local bureau, or get shots done within the US military medical world and do the rest at the bureau. Eileen reacts very strongly (think high fever and then about a week of not being herself), so the drive to one of the med facilities with US shots is untenable unless I have another person with me. I'll figure that out.

I spent yesterday morning (here it is 5am on Saturday) at the local swimming pool in Uden. It is actually a three pool indoor complex. Lovely and large. They have a swim class for babies. Eileen loved it. But, it starts and ends with a song or three, and I couldn't keep up with the singing. I will learn...I keep telling myself that. The pool was heated to about 88 degrees. There is a huge recreation pool with different depths that we might check out tomorrow afternoon. In other news, I may have made a Dutch friend, yesterday at the swim class. We'll see.