November 01, 2005
It will all come back to haunt you............
Being the good parents that we are we are always reminding Jacob to stay on the footpath, not wander vaguely onto bicycle paths and roads, and that he must always, ALWAYS hold someone's hand when he is crossing the road. This is quite a feat. In Amsterdam there is often no visible differentiation between footpath, bicycle path and road. There MAY or may not be a curb. They MAY or may not be made of a different material, asphalt or cobbles, or a different colour. There are no certainities with traffic and it's regulation. Still, everyone needs a little excitement, no?
Since he is only two we don't expect him to actually understand or be able to grasp the significance of this information so we still use the backup-system of constantly running after him screaming "Nee Jacob. Stop! Stop! STOP!". But it seems he understands far more than we gave him credit for.
Sunday morning on our weekly 7.00am jaunt Jacob gave me his hand so that we could cross the now-deserted-but-never-busy-anyway Govert Flinckstraat and we set off the whole 1.5m to the other side. Half way over our progress was arrested by a VERY stern "Nee Mama" and I was DRAGGED back to the footpath by my son. "fietser kommt aan...pas op!" he said pointing down the still-deserted street. [Cyclist coming, look out] And if I peered very very carefully I could just see that indeed, all the way over the Ferdinand Bolstraat, maybe almost 100m away, there was indeed a very slow oncoming cyclist. For whom we had to wait before Jacob would countenance our going any further. And wait. And just a bit longer.....
We eventually made it the 1.5m to the other side of the road, after waiting for two more cyclists. At 7.00am on a Sunday morning you have to wait quite a long time to see three cyclists in the Govert Flinckstraat.
So, I should have been prepared for what happenned later in the day. When Jacob and I are cycling I keep him entertained at red lights by having him watch for when the little-red-bicycle has turned green. I thought this was more a game than anything else. WRONG!
Coming up to an intersection with a green light which turned to an amber bicycle just as we got there I decided to keep going. After all there wasn't any traffic, car, bicycle, tram or pedestrian anyway. Half way across the road I braked in panic as Jacob let loose with a blood-curdling scream. Pointing up at the lights he said "fiets NIET groen Mama, NIET groen!" Do I need to translate that? The amber bicycle had not escaped the newly-apponited-head-of-traffic-police and he was NOT impressed.
Posted by Faith | TrackBack