March 06, 2008
Tuesdays
Tuesdays, Jacob often comes home from kindergarten armed with other little boys. He softens the blow by bringing their mum along with them. She and I indulge in further softening-up with a glass or two of wine. But what I don't understand is why it's only my child who feels the need to roll in the mud?
Posted by Faith at 04:04 AM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2008
The Velvet Lounge
The Casio(see below) is providing even more entertainment than imagined. The polystyrine inserts that held it safely in its box turning out to be the most perfect castle-with-secret-cave-underneath. What you can't see is that once you have entered the secret cave and gone through the hidden passageway you will find yourself in the Velvet Lounge which boasts purple walls and ceilings. Just the spot to relax with a martini and kick back to the ambient sounds of "wild pigs running through the purple forest".
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February 28, 2008
The sound of wild pigs running................
We've recently found a very good piano teacher, highly recommended by a five year old, who we're hoping will soon be able to start lessons with Jacob. Just to get him started, I dug out the old Casio I had in the garage and we spent some time playing with it this morning.
Jacob plays sounds that he describes variously as; darkness, very small mice, or fast horses. But it was when he embarked on "wild pigs running through the forest, no, a purple forest" that I knew his future in avant-garde jazz was assured.
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February 25, 2008
Mulching: - live and silent!
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November 27, 2007
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November 26, 2007
Mia and Jacob
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November 23, 2007
Chocolate cake
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November 19, 2007
Dingle Dangle scarecrow
Jacob and I made a scarecrow on the weekend to protect our tomato and capsicum patch. The first night our scarecrow was on duty there was a lot of wind and heavy rain and I feared the mostly water-soluble paint and glue involved would have left him the worse for wear. Not to mention the question of exactly how craft-glue and glitter paint dripping into the soil would fit into an organic permaculture system. Scarily enough he has survived not only intact, but has achieved just the right hint of menace to make him a real scarecrow. The sort that has set its sights on something higher up the food chain than just pigeons. The sort you hurry past as dusk is setting and don't look directly at. The sort you swore appeared somewhere else in the garden when you glanced out the kicthen window late at night......
Posted by Faith at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
Five
Jacob has announced that far better than having just the one baby in the new year would be having......... five! Five babies would be just fabulous!
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November 09, 2007
Ninja Fish
Today we went to buy four new goldfish to join the two already in our pond. Mission accomplished, we spent the trip home discussing possible names before settling on Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and Donatello. The Ninja Turtles of course!
We did also explore the possibility of finding a turtle to live in the garden but apparently they eat goldfish and tadpoles which would not do a lot for the gezelligheid in our pond. Unless, of course, we build another pond in the front garden.........
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November 01, 2007
4 - like, more than a month ago!
Good grief I forgot to blog about Jacob turning 4! Just what sort of a mother am I?
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October 25, 2007
What my mother did
Like many four-year-olds Jacob is firmly of the belief that you should never walk anywhere when you could hop, skip or jump. Better still is an amalgamation of all three. This method of perambulation combined with the varied and creative condition of many of the footpaths in these parts does, unfortunately, frequently find him abruptly sprawled face-down.
Last week, insult was added to injury when not only did he find himself once again counting ants, but his absent-minded-six-month-pregnant-staring-up-at-the-sky mother failed to notice and proceeded to walk on top of him! Luckily, only his index finger and sense of maternal care and consideration were injured. The latter taking quite some fixing, I might add!
Ice applied to the injured finger halted the swelling and an enormous blood blister beneath his nail eventually subsided although I did warn him that the nail may blacken and fall off. Jacob wondered if he would be able to show it to the kids at creche and when I assured him that he would he responded with a very enthusiastic "Cooooooool!"
Reality however is apparently not quite so cool. The creche just rang to say that Jacob's fingernail is loose and coming off and Jacob is unnerved enough by the experience to want to come home. After some telephone discussions he has agreed to settle for having a bandaid applied, preferably a Bart Simpson one, eating his lunch with the other kids and seeing how he feels after that.
I suggested he also make use of his fingernail at this afternoon's show-and-tell session. I suspect his pre-school teacher may be hoping for more uplifting topics but then again, as the class obsession at the moment is farts, poo and bottoms Jacob's dead fingernail is practically high-brow!
Posted by Faith at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2007
Fabulous
Jacob had his 4 year-old-assesment at Maternal and Child Health this morning at which it was mutually agreed by everyone, but mostly by him, that he was in every respect, "just fabulous"!
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August 02, 2007
Pirates of Brunswick
Blackheart Jacob's pirate ship sails through a very wintry Brunswick garden.
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July 31, 2007
Disgusting
On Saturdays Ronnie and Jacob bake muffins. After expertly mixing all the ingredients Jacob always conducts a taste-test. This demands, of course, an enormous spoonful of the mixture to be ingested. Last Saturday's taste-test saw Jacob's face briefly light up with suprise followed by increasing horror before an explosion of spluttering and spitting and the exclamation that "THAT was disgusting!"
Seems they mistook the salt for castor sugar.
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July 30, 2007
Stupid
After Jacob was born a colleague of mine in the Netherlands, who also had a boy, remarked on how much fun it was but with a warning for Ronnie attached. "For the first five years Dad's a hero, after that he's just stupid". I don't know if Jacob is precocious or we're just lucky but both Ron and I have achieved 'stupid' status already, at just three years and ten months. And we were just getting used to basking in the warm glow of hero-dom.
Posted by Faith at 01:36 AM | Comments (0)
June 25, 2007
The perils of multiculturalism 3
Jacob has a new DVD, a Dora the Explorer one. While the English version has smatterings of spanish the Dutch version has english as it's second language. Often while working in the Netherlands I was confronted with colleagues who had learnt enough English at school (which is compulsory there) to feel confident enough to translate documents themselves. This can lead to interesting usages as there are certain things that only a native-speaker or someone who has lived within a culture will know about use of certain phrases etc.
In the Dora adventure of the Prince and the Frog this seems to have been the case. There are some obvious literal translations, "Anybody help me" when it should be "Somebody help me" for example, but more alarmingly one instance where the usuage is just plain innapropriate.
In order to cross the crocodile lake Dora has to ask the crocodiles to close their snout's allowing her to walk over them. The initial translation into english is borderline; "Shut your mouth, please", only the 'please' softening an otherwise startling phrase in the mouth of a pre-schooler. But it gets worse. After asking the first crocodile to "Shut your mouth please", Dora switches to what someone obviously felt was the less formal version and tells the following four crocodiles in turn to "Shut up", "Shut up", "Shut up" etc.
It's a daunting thought that Dutch pre-schoolers are being taught to say "Shut up", a phrase most native english speakers would find unaceptable in a pre-schooler. It's even more daunting trying to explain to Jacob why he MUST NOT use this phrase when he goes to creche or anywhere else. Why it's OK for Dora to use it, (apparently) whereas if he uses it he will end up being isolated in the baby-room at creche, just like that-Nicholas-who-uses 'bad words'.
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June 23, 2007
On Saturday we bake muffins
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June 22, 2007
On wednesdays we eat chocolate cake
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June 06, 2007
Yes we have no apples in the laundry cupboard
Its been a big few weeks for Jacob. Besides learning to ride a bike without trainer wheels, draw in two dimensions and not to put stones up his nose he has also discovered lying.
This is real three-year-old lying. ie:he is totally crap at it and it's done with a strange sort of innocence.
For instance:
-Mama, I've finished my apple.
-Good boy.
-Don't look in the laundry cupboard mama.
-bewildered silence from mama who hadn't made any plans to look in the laundry cupboard
-Why shouldn't I look in the laundry cupboard?
-DON'T look in the laundry cupboard!
-I think I'll look in the laundry cupboard.
-No! Mama! DON'T look in the laundry cupboard!
-Is your apple in the laundry cupboard?
-No mama.
-bursts into giggles and runs from the room to laundry cupboard where he flings his arms across the door
If only it will always be this easy.
Posted by Faith at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2007
The second dimension
Sunday morning Jacob was busy drawing on the blackboard cupboards in the kitchen. The first thing I noticed was that while last week his drawings were made up of squiggles, (even though he knew how to draw squares, rectangles and circles) for the first time he has started using rectangles in his drawing.
The rectangles quickly became two dimensional spaces, one our backyard, with trees, grass and a giant-chicken and the other the zoo, full of lions and other animals. With both spaces he was very particular about what was on the inside and what was on the outside and the possibilities, or not, for moving from one to the other.
Posted by Faith at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2007
Wheels on fire
Recently we decided to take Jacob's trainer wheels off his bicycle. Not just so that we could watch him fall over but because one of them was worn out and he was also starting to rely on them too much. Once we mooted the idea Jacob was keen to 'ride like the big boys' and we decided to celebrate the occasion with a new helmet, his old one having a couple of nasty cracks in it.
Having selected a helmet with flames on it, (when saying the word flames you should use hushed tones of admiration, make your eyes large and round in awe and move your right hand in a gesture of something speeding past) Jacob was raring to go.
First we practised what he needed to do when stopping, ie:put his feet on the ground! Then we moved on to the serious stuff. After only a couple of goes with me holding his seat very lightly I was able to let go of him for seconds at a time. We called it a day before he got too tired but decided to have another practice on Saturday when Dad would be home from Perth and we could impress the pants off him.
Saturday morning Jacob couldn't wait to show Dad how he could ride 'by himself'. I thought it might take a bit of a warm up to get to the same point so was pretty impressed when the first attempt Jacob took off, cycling a good ten metres with no assistance from me. After that there was no stopping him! He did maybe twenty passes up and down the laneway we were using, practising his starting and stopping techniques until eventually he finished with a burn-out! Remind me never to mention the drag racing that still goes on in Lygon St to him.
And here, for the rellies, is another eerily silent film, documentary evidence of his riding skills, the new helmet (with flames on it) and the absence of trainer wheels!
Posted by Faith at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 15, 2007
A rolling stone gathers no moss........or something
Last week Jacob decided to enliven our Friday night routine by announcing as innocently as only a three-and-a-half year old can that he had put a stone up his nose.
This was seconds after I had ordered the pizza and poured my first glass of wine before collapsing on the couch to wait for Ron to get back from Perth. Ron had been away all week and being a single mum for a week, the same week that the book I was working on had to be absolutely-positively-finished-for-the-printer, I was looking forward to relaxing.
But no, Jacob had put a stone up his nose. Hours ago apparently, while at creche, and he was adamant that it hadn't come out. I couldn't see anything but no, he hadn't sneezed, no he hadn't swallowed anything strange and yes, it did hurt. When he pointed to where it hurt you could actually see a small swelling there as if the tissue was inflamed.
So, Ron still in the air, it was off to the Royal Children's Hospital Emergency Department. Three and a half hours later, having seen a nurse, been to the GP clinic, had an x-ray, and been back to the GP clinic we returned home, by now accompanied by Ron, with one exhausted and hungry (in case they had to sedate him) little boy.
There are two things Jacob is now absolutely sure of. He will never again put anything up his nose and he DOES NOT like hospitals.
The stone was never found. It may still turn up, it may have been long gone. It was in there at one point as the tissue in his right nostril was inflamed.
Posted by Faith at 07:29 AM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2007
The damned and the lost
Ronnie took Jacob to the zoo yesterday so that I could slave away on my work while the rest of the nation had a public holiday.
Jacob has become very independent of late and one-way-or-another wandered off from the lakeside Bistro area to visit the seals by himself. We won't go into why or how it is even possible for this to happen; cliched phrases such as 'looked away just for a moment', 'so quick' and 'you just CAN'T do that' have been bandied about.
I am still suprised at just how little sympathy I feel for Ron after he went through what must have been the most terrifying ten minutes of his life. I don't even feel guilty about pointing out that he needn't have bothered coming home if Jacob hadn't been found. I may have even suggested that if that had been the case he would be better off getting straight out on the ring-road to the airport and onto the next flight back to the Netherlands. Isn't that horrible? I seem to have come over all mother-tigerish.
Anyway, before this virtual-deportation became a reality, Ron told a zoo employee Jacob was missing and within seconds it had been walkie-talkied to all employees and Ron had been escorted to the reception area to wait. Jacob was found soon afterwards, standing crying near the platypus house, by a keeper who recognised his decription, (was it the Olive Grove skull-and-cross-bones t-shirt?) gave him a biscuit and stayed with him until Ron arrived.
Lately Jacob's response to being told that he can't do something or that he might have to wait is, "Well, I can do it by myself." I'm just hoping that maybe he will be a little more cautious about rushing off to prove it in future. And that his father won't be telling me to 'Relax!' quite so often. Poor man.
Posted by Faith at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2007
Jacob eats Vegemite
Jacob eats vegemite. Nothing special about that in these here parts but I know the Dutch and English find it strange to say the least so here is a little film to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.
Posted by Faith at 07:05 AM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2007
Autumn
Autumn has definetly set in. It is still in the low to mid twenties most days but there is a decided chill in the air that wasn't there a month ago. Still, it reminds you of what is so nice about winter visits to the beach. Here's Jacob at Elwood beach, right next to one of our favourite coffee places, the Elwood Beach House Cafe.
Posted by Faith at 05:11 AM | Comments (0)
March 19, 2007
It's all downhill from here
Jacob's 3-year-old obsession with dinosaurs and diggers (animals and transport, as someone succinctly summed it up)is still firmly in place but getting a run for it's money lately from a new leaning towards long conversations centred around bottoms, penises and boobies. Farts and burps have been known to figure prominently also.
As we only speak Dutch to him and this new obsession manifests itself almost purely in English I am assuming it has been picked up from the four-year-olds at creche. (Or could Grandma and aunty Alix be responsible......?)
I've been wondering lately about the wisdom of leaving the vast majority of Jacob's english-language education in the hands of pre-schoolers. At least we needn't be concerned that it isn't a broad education.
Posted by Faith at 03:55 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
What we did on Wednesday
Wednesdays, Jacob and I get to stay at home together and just relax. This week we made our usual shopping trip down to Lygon St, dragging our 'brunswick buggy' through the bluestone laneways. If you can't get their via a laneway it just ain't worth going to!
After filling up the buggy we have a coffee and babycino and share a cake-of-Jacob's choice. He seems to be on some sort of chocolate thing at the moment.
After we got home we hung out two loads of washing, picked the last of the basil and made some pesto, picked and washed some apples for Fluffyasacat and the Tiny Man, stewed some for ourselves, fed the chooks, baked a chocolate cake and terrorised some trees with our beginner pruning skills. The we cleaned up Jacob's room and the loungeroom so that he and the Tiny Man could mess them up again while discussing the possibility of giving the Tiny Man one of our apple trees.
A quick call to dad to tell him that we had burped in the street (twice) and farted consistently all day and next thing we knew the Tiny Man himself had arrived. (Thank god!)
Jacob and the Tiny Man discussed farts and burps and bottoms while Fluffyasacat and I discussed cow poo, apple trees, pruning, floor insulation and other weighty, and mostly organic, matters.
Once the Tiny Man had left we retired to the couch to read 37 books before finally falling asleep two hours past our normal bedtime.
Posted by Faith at 04:53 AM | Comments (0)
March 13, 2007
Jacob digs gardening
We had plans to do LOTS of gardening this weekend. As it was we got lazy and did very little but Jacob ensured that at least some digging was done. Another eerily silent production.
Posted by Faith at 08:09 AM | Comments (0)
March 02, 2007
Firetrucks, Tiny Man and pizza
Jacob had just about the perfect Friday.
One of the Dads at creche is a fireman and today brought along a real-live-firetruck-with-firemen for the kids to admire and scramble over. Jacob has been pestering me all week with the one question, "Will I be able to get in it?". This was answered today with a resounding "Yes!" and he spent the whole afternoon basking in the after-glow of fire-truck-happiness. A practically perfect day was topped of by a visit to best friend Tiny Man's house where pizza was eaten while wearing spiderman masks and suits.
Could it possibly get any better than this? Well yeeeeeeeeees! How about falling asleep in the car on the way home clutching a banana. Wild!
Below, is a photo we prepared earlier. January, I believe. (Notice how Jacob reserves the right of the host to wear the towel on his head).
Posted by Faith at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2007
Join the dots
While procrastinating with work and doing some suddenly urgent cleaning out off mysterious directories on our laptop I discovered some old movies.
Since replacing our digital camera with a digital SLR we haven't been able to make any movies. An enormous loss to the world I realise. So I've posted the handful we have to youtube. Just what the world needs, more baby home movies.
Here are Jacob's chicken pox in motion. He wasn't quite 1.
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February 22, 2007
Oh yeah!
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December 25, 2006
Ninja Xmas
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December 22, 2006
Two santas
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Learning to love the saint
Saturday we saw Santa in the local shopping centre. Quite a traditional looking Santa quietly passing in-and-out of consciousness inside his costume and beard; not one of these new-fangled-metra-Santa's with their obviously-fake-beards, barefeet and self-referential-irony. It was possible to have your photo taken with the sweltering Saint but Jacob wasn't going anywhere near him so we left that alone. He did receive a balloon and little Santa-book to read.
The Santa-Claus-is-coming-to-town jingle on ABC Kids is enough these days to send him into an over-excited frenzy. He's still not sure exactly what it's all about but he knows it's worth risking my wrath and leaping excitedly on the furniture for. After watching the promo carefully a couple of times he has announced that he may now be ready to give Santa another try.
Posted by Faith at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2006
Twinkle twinkle
Determined to meet my maternal responsibilities and ensure both a suitably festive atmosphere AND Jacob's creative development I spent an evening cutting out what seemed an endless number of cardboard stars of varying sizes from saved bits of it'll-come-in-handy-later cardboard.
The next day Jacob accompanied me to one of those el-cheapo shops lining Sydney Rd where to his delight we stocked up on waterpaints, brushes, glitterpaint and glue. It was a nice enough day to paint outside so we sat under the Japanese maple and started with the water paints. Jacob did about two stars before deciding they were boring and demanded pictures of reindeers printed from the internet to colour in. I finished the other thirty-something stars while Jacob rendered Rudolph black in a hundred different ways and mixed all the watercolours into a muddy mustard. Luckily, I'd kept the glitter paint in reserve.
The glitter proved only a short distraction (for him, ....I'm still into it.) so while I painted glitter over the dry watercolours Jacob finally unleashed his creative juices and proceeded to stick bits of dried grass on top. A move that was not only inspired but actually lookd really good. I resorted to painting the leaves from the gum tree with glitter in a feeble attempt to keep my end up and not be completely outdone by a three-year-old.
I was planning to adorn our gorgeous fifties-mantelpiece with the stars but in the end blu-tacked them to the doors opening from the side of the living room. The best ones ARE the ones with grass on them.
Posted by Faith at 02:49 AM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2006
Is this Christmas?
Santa Claus came to Jacob's creche the other day. Jacob had prepared for this event, ruthlessly practising Jingle Bells for days and days beforehand. He admitted he might be a little bit afraid of Santa and might need me to accompany him when his name was called out but after watching a tardy, tall, skinny, bare-footed Santa hand out presents to the first five or six kids advised me that he was no longer scared and my services would not be required. Twenty minutes later and still waiting for his present to emerge from a now-alarmingly-empty-looking sack he had once again changed his mind; the anxiety of missing out was playing with his mind.
Santa was a bit rushed having started late and hence niceties such as singing, ho,ho,ho-ing and small-talk were ditched. This and the mid-30's temperature left Oma and Opa looking slightly bemused by the so-called Australian Christmas cheer.
Posted by Faith at 04:28 AM | Comments (0)
December 11, 2006
42 C and chocolate ice cream.......
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December 07, 2006
Wiggling on
Thank God the new Wiggle is cutting it!
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November 26, 2006
Four more sleeps
Only four more sleeps until Oma and Opa arrive from the Netherlands! In the meantime Jacob had a very sociable weekend with Saturday spent painting and growing dinosaurs with Tante Alix. This allowed Ron and I to do a last minute dash around the shopping strips of the north and buy, amongst other things, a futon for Oma and Opa to sleep on.
Sunday, Jacob spent playing in the local playground at a morning arranged for parents from his creche to meet each other and after that it was over to his new-best-friend Issac's who was celebrating his 4th birthday. It was Jacob's first 'real' birthday party, (aside from those held for relatives and at creche's and his own) and he was introduced to all the wonders of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Pass-the-Parcel, Egg and Spoon Races and penata smashing. Wide-eyed and exhausted he coped with it all quite well and still managed to play sociably with his favourite host.
Other notable events of the day; it was the first time the chooks were let out to free range. Tomato seedlings and basil and lettuce went into the vegetable garden. Very late for tomatoes but then we started late.
Posted by Faith at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2006
GGGood morning
At Jacob's last creche he became best-and-insperable friends with Megan within days of starting. It was only a few weeks later that we discovered that her surname was 'de Boer' and that she was from Sth Africa. Now Jacob has had to change creche and on his second day became best-and-inseperable friends with another Jacob. (Yes, you only have to call them once ......)
This morning I looked down the sign-in list to see what the-other-Jacob's surname was. Unbelievable! 'Guthleben'! The boy's germanic gene's are seeking out others at some sub-genetic level. Is there a Germanic DNA marker, maybe he is zeroing in on a hard-G, or is it just the scent of potatoes?
Posted by Faith at 07:29 AM | Comments (0)
November 19, 2006
Shorn
Jacob hasn't been too keen on having his hair cut of late. This has led to the invention of a game called comb-and-scissors-chasey and haircuts like this. Works of art in themselves to be sure but not always terribly practical.
So this year's award for patience, persistence, and perseverance in the face of grave personal danger has to go to Nabil the Barber, in Lygon St. Nabil hails from Syria and has limited english and even fewer customers and so it was that I selected him for this special assignment, as someone who might have the time to indulge the whims of a three year old. Poor Nabil did an excellent job; for his eight dollars he endured Jacobs contortions, a haircut that took almost an hour, having to give Mama a trim to prove it wouldn't hurt, and being stabbed in the palm of the hand with his own scissors.
There are those who complain constantly about immigrants to this country but Nabil is wounded-proof that most of them are willing to put up with far more than the average Australian in order to make a go of things. The mettle of the man reminded me of nothing more than the old-school shearers whose hard-yakka battler mentality is supposed to encapsulate so much that is 'Australian'.
The suprise bonus at the end of it all is the gentle waft of patchouli everytime I ruffled Jacob's hair for the next few days. Poor Nabil, looks like we'll be returning!
Posted by Faith at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
November 09, 2006
Little Kids
I saw this in a local second-hand shop and had to buy it for Jacob's room. Besides it's obvious kitsch-appeal it also captures perfectly that certain smugness, the patronising air that goes with being appealed to as one of the big kids.
Smugness and patronising airs are something Jacob can wear with style at the drop of a hat these days. The poster is from a series produced here in the 1950s and is an original. I found that a set was recently sold at auction here in Melbourne. Individually they fectched the same price each as I paid for this one retail so I got a pretty good deal.
Posted by Faith at 01:21 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2006
I should be so Lucky
On Sunday all Jacob's horse-riding dreams came true while simultaneously fulfilling some of Ron's worst nightmares. Now that's quite a feat for one horse isn't it?
We finally managed to be at the Collingwood Children's Farm on a Sunday on which they have free pony rides. After queuing up for a good three-quarters of an hour Jacob's dreams were realised and he finally sat proudly astride a reasonably impressive horse. While they're called 'pony rides' the steeds in question are actually full-sized horses. As each child has to be accompanied by a parent, and the height of the horse making my presence pretty much redundant, (I'm only 165cm) Ron had to 'volounteer' to walk beside the horse for the duration of the ride. Ron's enthusiasm for horse-riding has been well documented. From the look on Jacob's face as he sat astride Lucky, he'll be getting plenty of opportunity to develop it even further.
Posted by Faith at 06:18 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2006
SuperJacob
SuperJacob set off for creche this morning cleverly disguised as a three year old with what looked suspiciously like a towel on his head. Of course, Jacob was able to spot the transformative powers of the towel, (Hema baby-towel, embroidered giraffe on the corner that sits on your head) immediately and wasn't fooled for an instant. Transformed into SuperJacob he flew from here to creche in nano seconds.
Once at creche he strolled in with the same air of expectant confidence that normally you see only on the likes of a David Beckham-in-Armani-on-a-red-carpet-with-hair-gel, totally confident that the SuperJacob cape would be received with appropriate awe. As the only people there were the grown ups the initial reception did live up to expectations although the subtext may have escaped the attention of the man-of-cute-bendy-steel. As SuperJacob slid smugly into his chair to start jigsaw puzzles still wearing his cream coloured towel with embroidered giraffe on the forehead, sorry, SuperJacob cape, his mother left hoping fervently that the four year olds would be gentle with him.
One thing is apparent though, the lessons we've been trying to instill about having to share any of the toys he chooses to take to creche are obviously working. When I gently suggested that maybe the towel, I mean, Super Jacob cape, wasn't the best thing to take to creche Jacob stood there with it crumpled up in his hands and said, "Maar Mama, Ik gaa het deelen!" (But Mama, I'm going to share it). Those lucky kids!
The SuperJacob cape
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October 29, 2006
Tiger, tiger burning bright
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October 24, 2006
The Rising Son
Dawn is dawning fairly early these days. I'm not sure just how early but suffice to say that Jacob has abandoned winter-waking hours of 7.00am and is now on a 5.30am ETA in our bedroom. Through the slats in the shutters I can say that it IS light then. This then is notice that my brain is officially on 'befuddled' status from now until some time after the summer solstice. And that's still two months away!
Posted by Faith at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2006
3
New bike, mouth full of birthday cake....... what more could a 3 year old want? Except maybe........ a big green bear?
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September 15, 2006
never too much bling
Go here for your own bling.
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September 13, 2006
Mysterious ways
Creche places in Brunswick are, like everywhere in inner-city Melbourne, like the proverbial hen's teeth. After contacting everything in the area, both private and community, it looked like the only possibility was to start with two days in one of the private centres and hope that we would be able to get another couple of days sometime in the future. With oma and opa coming from the Netherlands for the summer this didn't seem too bad an option and I figured we'd muddle through in the meantime with Grandma's help and the ocassional babysitter.
Thursday last week I went to visit the creche which seemed lovely in every way. Privately owned for 18 years by the same people, a small room of ten toddlers who would then all go up into three-year-old kindergarten together, a lovely couple of girls as his carers and a nice mixed bunch of kilds. There was just one thing nagging at me afterwards and it took a while for me to put my finger on exactly what it was but finally it dawned on me. Weren't the kids a bit too quite for toddlers?
Compared to the exhuberance I see in Jacob, the other kids and his carers where he is now, everyone seemed a little subdued. Not at all unhappy mind you, but definetly on the quiet side. Jacob likes to fit in and I think it would be a bit of a shame if after six months he'd become a quieter child. Sure, there are times I'd give my eye-teeth for a quieter child; hurrying through Coles with a toddler launching himself on passing strangers screaming "Komm naar beneden een vechten met mij!" (Thank God its in Dutch!)is one of them, but the spontanous enthusiasm that Jacob and his carers have now for everything is so much a part of who he is I'd hate to see it diminished. I'm still not sure what it was, maybe with the owner, manager and senior kindergarten teacher being older Greek-australians there is more emphasis on keeping the children orderly than in a centre managed by younger people. There was certainly nothing wrong with their care, but I couldn't see it being the best fit for Jacob.
In desperation I went to visit one of the community places on Friday which had only the one day available per week. As soon as I walked in I felt Jacob would be at home here; in terms of style of care, it seemed to sit precisely in between his old place in Amsterdam and the place he is is now, both of which we think have been brilliant. It would be worth the trouble of muddling through with just the one day (and maybe having to do much of my work at night) just to have our foot-in-the-door at such a nice place. Miracles happen, as while I was there they got the news that another child would be giving up Fridays and we would be able to have that as well. Two days! Even more amazing before I left another child's parents had been in too say that they were moving in a couple of months, thus freeing up some more days, which maybe, after consulting the internal waiting list, we might be able to have one of.
I feel like I've won the lottery! We not only have a nice place for Jacob close to home but have broken into the Holy Grail of childcare in Australia: .....community care!
Posted by Faith at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2006
Blue Chooks
Last night while day-dreaming (?) about our soon-to-be back yard I had a vision. A quick call today to the local city council confirmed that "Yes, you are allowed to keep chooks", up to seven in fact. Personally, I think three or four will suffice for us.
Discussions with Jacob ensued and I asked his advice on what colour the chooks should be.........white, black, brown? Blue! Blue? ...........OK.
While scouring the internet for blue chooks I have come across some other useful bits of information. How to build a chook shed should come in handy. And if you're not sure whether you're ready for the commitment to chooks then you can even Try-before-you-buy by renting some first! I'm already there....I've even worked out the optimum position for the chook run so that all that fertiliser can end up on the vegie garden.
I also found How to Kill a Chook but after seeing my grandfather do this at regular intervals when I was a child I think we'll still be heading to the butcher when we actually want to eat one. I do like their advice though;
Be kind and gentle, these are its last moments on earth, and you will be eating them soon enough. I usually talk to the chook on the way from house to chopping block, expressing compassion and trust.
This is one of the things I like about Melbourne. Living practically in the middle of the city AND keeping chooks.
Posted by Faith at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)
August 31, 2006
Its not just a bad haircut
The first of those horrible school fotos with the blue/green/grey mottled backgrounds! Except of course it's not a horrible foto is it?
As you can see in the foto, Jacob has taken a dislike to going to the hairdressers and we have had to resort to home haircuts. Then he took a dislike to these (can't think why...) and we have had to resort to home-haircuts-on-the-run. I'm sure chasing your child with a pair of scissors is frowned upon in some circles but I like to think of it as a creative exercise -some sort of performance art- that is then captured on a walking, talking, dribbling, highly-opinionated mobile gallery.
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June 16, 2006
Smile!
Jacob came home from creche yesterday proudly sporting a sticker of Molly Molar on his jumper and armed with a report from the community dentist. The dentist visits creches and kindergartens to introduce toddlers to the idea of looking after their teeth and of letting someone examine their teeth. It works really well as of course the creche is nowhere near as scary as a dentist's surgery. At Jacob's creche they do the kids in twos so Jacob and his best friend Megan got to sit together holding hands while they showed the dentist how wide they could open their mouths.
Jacob and I had been practising opening-our-mouth-for-the-dentist in the morning on the way to creche which may have been just a bit startling for early morning traffic on Brighton Road but it obviously paid off with the dentist not only getting a good look at Jacob's teeth but being able to pronounce them all in good health and in the right place. And it's free! I know everyone in Australia is convinced the country is going to wrack and ruin but honestly.........if they only knew!
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June 13, 2006
Men at work
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June 11, 2006
Papa
Jacob has had a hard week with Papa being away for six days at a conference in the States. The difficulties of explaining this to him when the concept of a week or six days is not one that really means anything to him have all sorts of ramifications. How then to re-assure him that it's only temporary, that its not his fault, that Papa will be back? As usual, Jacob seems to be handling it all very well, ......a bit too well, I thought. This was confirmed when we went to pick Papa up from the airport on Saturday. Jacob's reaction on seeing his dad again was just a bit over the top and his relief was palpable.
Luckily it's a long weekend here and he can enjoy having Papa at home for a couple of days. Uncle Benny and Auntie Alix were also here to visit so all-in-all it's been a very satisfactory weekend for Jacob with the proper order restored at home AND a couple of extra hands available for flying trains and book reading. Slinky Malinky and Scarface Claw are the current stars!
Posted by Faith at 06:06 AM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2006
The new accent
Jacob's english is starting to display some of the broader vowels for which the australian accent is famous. Ron and I speak only Dutch to him so it is the creche and his grandmother who are his primary sources of english.
The girls at Jacob's creche are fabulous carers but between them have some terrifying vowels, with accents almost as broad as their hips in some cases. Grandma would have had a fit when I was growing up if I had displayed some of the same sounds, 'moine' for 'mine', 'howse' for 'house' so it looks as if quality control will be resting with her.
Posted by Faith at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
Running like papa
If you're missing Papa then the best cure is to put on his smelly jogging shirt and run-like-papa in the backyard. Works for us everytime!
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May 08, 2006
Kids Krisis
Just when everything was going so well.
Just as in Amsterdam we really lucked out with Jacob's creche here. When child care is supposedly in crisis with people on waiting lists for years we walked into the first place we saw and discovered not only did we love it but that Jacob could start immediately. It is a privately-owned creche with a very real commitment to the children. They not only meet the minimum standards for qualified caregivers but go well beyond them in that every staff member is qualified or in the process of gaining qualifications. Food is bought daily and cooked on the premises and nothing is kept or re-used the following day. Children's farms, music and dance teachers, theatre groups, gym groups are all regular visitors. The staff have been wonderful and the comments they make each morning and evening show that they know Jacob well and must have spent a certain amount of time with him one-on-one each day. Most importantly, Jacob is as happy as Larry going there.
So, it was with some disapointment that we heard today that the owners are retiring and have sold the creche to Kids Campus, one of the big chain childcare providers about whom there is so much controversy at the moment. What's worse is a glance at their web site which reveals that they are the object of a friendly take-over bid by ABC Learning Centres, the biggest provider in Australia and infamous for their CEO's recent attempts to avoid responsibility for a breach of care with one of their toddlers. That a company with such enormous profits is determined to challenge the most basic precepts of the laws protecting children in care is very scary and frankly alarms me about the culture governing the environment in which Jacob would be spending his days.
I was worrying about having to move Jacob from the creche when we bought a house which will most probably be in another area. Now I'll just be glad too!
What says the most to me is that if I look at the websites of both these companies there is very little information about children and looking after them. They are very much corporate websites of profit-making concerns. Somehow the idea of a company that makes a AUS$38 million profit and then tries to shift the blame for breach of care to some of the lowest paid employees in the country, looking after my son is NOT confidence inspiring. If they will do this to their own employees what would they not do to my son? And why would anyone with any hope of a job elsewhere want to work for them?
Damn, damn,damn, damn,damn!
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April 18, 2006
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April 10, 2006
Just a perfect day.
We had a quiet weekend after we all woke up on Saturday with sore throats and snuffly noses. Curse this damn cold weather! (18C!)
Jacob did manage to make it through his weekly swimming class after which he was rewarded with a certificate marking his graduation into the following level. From next week it's Swimming-without-parents. Some children may be apprehensive about this but its what Jacob has been waitig for. The first step in a masterplan whose aim is to achieve our redundancy as soon as possible. Preferably before Easter.
Sunday he was obviously feeling better (she thought, ruefully) and we enjoyed some post-dawn (just) football while the rest of the universe slept. I'd had a nano-second or so the previous week to allow my thoughts to wander and had come up with some plans of my own. These involved the ripening cumquaats in the front garden so Jacob and Papa and I killed another hour or so picking said cumquats. I then spent an hour or so seeding and peeling a miniscule portion of the cumquats and discovering why no one makes cumquat marmelade anymore.
Plans for some winter vegies are also being hatched and so it was a quick trip to Bunnings before heading over to Tante Alix's to celebrate her birthday. The prospect of my sister's plastic dinosaur collection was enough to convince Jacob that he had better NOT have that afternoon nap so while he made it through the birthday celebrations the last of the day was ended on a tired-and-slightly-cranky note.
(As I've mentioned elsewhere I have removed the comments facility, you can email comments to you-know-where)
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April 06, 2006
Kergunya
(As I mentioned below I have removed the comments facility, you can email comments to you-know-where)
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March 27, 2006
Jet and Dixie
Starting a new thing here.........boys-and-their-dogs. Our friends Jayce and Brendan sent us this photo of Jet, their son and Dixie their beagle. Hi Jet!
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March 17, 2006
Jacob online
Jacob online via the webcam with Maro and Dario in IJsselstein.
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February 09, 2006
What's holding Jacobs pants up now?
A week.
A whole week without any nappies during the day. And only three accidents. (One late in the afternoon when he was tired and two on one day when he decided he just wasn't going to be bothered.)
Toliet training has however created a new problem. The removal of nappies has made keeping-Jacob's-pants-up even trickier than it already was. New feats of maternal-engineering will be required. Luckily, showing off your underpants and the top of your bottom is still fashionable amongst the under 3s.
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February 07, 2006
Starting from scratch
It has become painfully obvious that despite our best efforts to be fascinating, childish and spontaneous-funsters Jacob is missing the company of other rug-rats. So even though we are not working at the moment we went to check out the local creche situation. (Also playgroups, but he is going to need a creche position soon anyway so we thought it best to start now)
Despite all the hype about ridiculous waiting lists and so forth we found a place that not only seems ideal but where he can start straight away. (This was exactly what happenned in the Netherlands as well. We just seem to get lucky with fabulous-instant-child-care?)Initially just for a day or two per week, for the company more than anything else, and then later we can extend when it becomes neccessary. It isn't De Schep, but then that was unique, even in Amsterdam, but it does seem like a nice place. What we also like is that they have children speaking more than 25 languages and are used to children for whom English is their second language.
Jacob spent a couple of hours there on Monday morning and LOVED it. Straight into his charming-the-pants-off-everyone-routine. Danced madly with all the girls, climbed the highest climbing frame and cycled the fastest in the playground to impress all the boys and announced when he needed to go to the toilet to impress the carers.
The other children also left quite an impression on Jacob. Especially one little girl who wasn't into sharing the old-frying-pan-full-of-sand that Jacob had set his heart on. With two huge scratches under his eye it will be a while before Jacob forgets her!
Posted by Faith at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2006
Today we went to the zoo
We have now embarked on an effort to do all the touristy Melbourne things.......... while we can. We did intend to do the same before we left Amsterdam but somehow ran out of time. Kind of embarassing. "Have you seen x?" "No, we ran out of time, we were there only 5 years". At least I've been to the Rijksmueum, unlike some Dutchmen I know.
My most recent memories of the zoo are of their Twilight Jazz evenings which I used to go to, just over 5 years ago. Now they're added the chance to have breakfast with the animals AND (best of all), the chance to camp out overnight in the Zoo grounds. Now that sounds tempting.
While I've been away they've upgraded the elephant enclosure. The elephants were one of the last of the animals stuck in the old-fashioned enclosures that basically didn't enable them enough space or privacy. Upgrading their enclosure had been on the cards for years and while I was away it happenned. The new enclosure is lovely and and like the other newer areas, doesn't really give the sense of an enclosure at all. Its the humans who are enclosed and guided past the elephants rather than vice-versa. The kitsch Thai elephant-village design is also really nice. I often don't enjoy zoos, seeing animals enclosed isn't very enjoyable but the design of the climatic zones in which the animals are kept seems to really address a lot of the stress animals suffer in these situations. It also adds a real sense of adventure to the day. Or maybe that just shows what a dull life I've been leading?
Jacob was beside himself with happiness at all the real-life bears, lions, elephants and tigers roaming around. But especially the gorillas and monkeys. Wandering through the treetop exhibits he couldn't stop gabbling madly away at every other child he saw (in Dutch). But what rendered him open-mouthed and speechless was the sight of all the butterflies in the butterfly enclosure.
And he didn't wear a nappy ALL day. (Third day in a row....)
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February 02, 2006
Gone feral
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Pissing with the big boys
Being the highly perceptive parents that we are it has suddenly occured to us that Jacob has grown up a lot in the last month since we have been in Australia.
In Amsterdam he still slept in his cot in our room. Just because there was no other bedroom and it didn't seem to make sense to buy a bed when we'd be moving so soon. In Australia his own room with a proper single-bed was waiting for him. We'd assumed he'd want to sleep with us at first and then once the strangeness of new-land, new-people, new-language and the vanishing-act-of-his-previous-life had worn off we'd ease him into his own room and the 'big' bed. Just goes to show what we know.
From our first night here he has slept in his own bed in his own room quite happily. The first three nights he woke up in the middle of the night but that was most likely the residue of his jet-lag. Since then he has slept through every morning until dawn when he then comes into us.
In addition to that he is now half-way to being toilet trained. The great thing about hot weather and wooden floors is that he can wander around naked all day. Two days of this and he'd stopped having accidents on the floor. Now, its only when we're outside the house and he has clothes on that he sometimes misses his cue. But today he went the entire day without a nappy or an accident. He is not always keen to go to the toilet when we suggest it but can usually be seduced by the promise of being allowed to stand up 'like papa'.
A future without nappies beckons...........
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January 20, 2006
too lazy to blog
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December 21, 2005
doei doei jacob!
The farewells continue. Today was Jacob's last day at De Schep, the creche where he has been for two years now, since he was three months old. This afternoon they held a gezellig goodbye party for Jacob and he was showered with presents and snotty kisses.
The beauty of De Schep was their permit was for only six children per day and as Jacob started just after it opened he has grown up with a group who all started at around the same age. He is going to miss Morris, Reza, Liv, Ninon, Dino, Merle, Lee, Fedde and Elies. Not to mention Verica, Suzana, Joachim and all the other carers who have looked after him so well for the past two years.
The very best present of all was from Verica, the manager of the Schep, and the other carers. They put together a scrapbook with photos of Jacob and his friends taken over the past two years, their hand and footprints and artwork.
Posted by Faith at 08:09 PM | Comments (0)
December 19, 2005
More crowing
Suddenly it's our last week in Amsterdam and the most trivial events are suddenly very deep-and-meaningful when it strikes you at the silliest moments this this may be the 'last time' you do this, or see that.
Considerate of Jacob then to break the tension by transforming what shall probably be our last visit to Cafe Poef into a BIG first when he not only announced that he wanted to go to the toilet but then amazed everyone by doing a pee into the toilet bowl. The enourmous grin on his face as he strutted back to the childrens play-corner was overshadowed only by his father's.
Also a 'last' was our visit to the childrens farm where we have been going since Jacob was three months old. (OK, a bit ambitious but he loves the smell of goat in the morning..........
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December 13, 2005
Smug parent warning
This is one of those posts you swore you'd never make, the crowing, bragging, my-boy-is-a-genius sort so it might be an idea to skip it unless you're one of Jacob's grandparents or aunts and uncles. If you start feeling nauseaous while you're reading it then best to just go straight to the next one!
Last week Jacob had his last check up at the Consultatiebureau. This was the 2 year milestone so we were keen to have it before we go back to Australia. It also gave us the chance to get copies of his records to take back with us. So we can brag about him to medical professionals in two hemispheres!
His growth is as usual good, he is now 91 cms and 12.3 kilos. At 91 cms he is exactly the Dutch average for a boy of 27 months. His weight is a little under the average but still increasing in the right manner so its not a problem. Interestingly, (but predictably) his height is 1cm above the Australian average for a boy his age.
His general health seemed fine in all respects, despite the tick and his habit of climbing things from which he is doomed to fall. The doctor also did some simple exercises with him to test his motor skills and language development. This is where it all descends into a blurry vision of maternal pride.
Seems a child of Jacob's age should be able to make sentences of two and three words. Jacob's conversation with the doctor made it clear that five and six word sentences in Dutch were no problem for him. She was impressed but was even more so when I casually mentioned (yeah right!) that he could also understand and speak English. Luckily he backed me up on this demonstrating three word sentences in his second language as well.
As if this wasn't enough Jacob then went on to floor her with a football demonstration and block building abilities that defied medical explanation. While she would have been satisfied if he could place three blocks on top of each other with either hand he did eight with his left hand and six with his right.
Smug, smug, smug, smug, smug!
PS(I've just noticed the growth charts used in Australia are based on data from the US. Now that seems strange considering the difference in populations? Also, the weight charts don't include data from the US since 1994 as the trend there towards obesity 'skews' the data. I wonder why they don't use data from Australia?)
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December 06, 2005
The mean streets..........
Just a boy and his horse trying to look cool, maybe I could be James Dean? Jack Kerouac? Lucky Luke?........... except of course for my mother, crawling in the gutter behind me.
(Get used to it Jacob. Get used to it.)
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December 05, 2005
De Sint
Tonight in the Netherlands it is 'pakjesavond', the evening of Sint Niklaus' birthday. In celebration he journeys to the Netherlands from Spain accompanied by his Morrocan slave 'black Pete' and a big book full of the names of all the children in the Netherlands. Children who have been good will get a present and children who have been bad will be bundled into 'black Pete's' bag and dragged off to Spain.
Now if you can't see the pitfalls in THAT story....... Maybe it's a side-effect of my formal Dutch citizenship or maybe it just shows how long I've been living here but this year is the first where the sight of blacked-up Netherlanders roaming the streets of Amsterdam hasn't made me literally cringe.
Still it remains a cultural minefield, especially in a society where schools are divided into 'black' and 'white' and the non-white-Dutch are generally type-cast as the criminals and source-of-all-our-problems. Jacob's response at the age of one at his first pakjes avond on seeing a zwarte Piet was to burst into tears, turn tail and crawl out of there as fast as he could. Maybe it was the most rational response after all?
This year, being two, with a bit of preparation through the watching of the Sinterklaas Journal and the donning of a Piet beret and having a healthy respect for pepernoten he proved able to overcome his fears and enjoy the gezelligheid at his creche when three Zwarte Pieten turned up with peppernoten and presents for the children. There was singing, dancing, running and in the end slightly-hysterical-screaming enjoyed by all!
As if this wasn't enough De Sint also came to visit in Ijsselstein. This was a very impressive Sint with a big white beard and a HUGE book and five Zwarte Pieten. Jacob wasn't going anywhere near him although he did thaw towards the smallest of the Zwarte Piets when he spied the bag of peppernoten she was carrying! (you can see some pictures in the entry below)
Now THATS over all we have to deal with is a couple of birthdays, a wedding anniversary, Christmas and a quick hemisphere swap before the New Year.
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December 04, 2005
Hij komt, hij komt!
Jacob has had a busy weekend full of Sint's and Zwarte piets, not to mention bulging cheeks worth of peppernoten!
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November 11, 2005
Sint Maarten
Tonight is the annual "Sintmaartenlopen" evening where small children walk through the streets with their lanterns knocking on doors and singing songs in return for lollies. Jacob went off to IJselstein this morning clutching the lantern he made at creche last week and ready to launch his singing prowess on Oma and Opa's neighbours. At the moment he is focusing on volume rather than musicality so it's sure to be appreciated.
Coincidentally (;-) )it has been arranged that he will spend the night with Oma and Opa so it they who will have to induce the sugar-fuelled-boy into sleep tonight. Not me. Now that's planning!
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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.
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October 27, 2005
The bottom rung
Where I grew up the WORST thing anyone could do was wear socks with sandals. Luckily it was an affliction that we saw rarely, mostly on TV, and one that we were convinced affected only the British. So it came as a bit of a shock to me when I first arrived in the Netherlands, almost 5 years ago, to discover that the habit had crossed the Channel and was far more widespread than I'd ever imagined.
This morning Jacob's Dutch genes woke up on the bossy side and motherely love was stretched to it's very limits. Discovering his summer sandals Jacob decided they were the perfect accompaniment to his already considered outfit. As the rest of this outfit had entailed lengthy discussions and negotiations I took the cowards' way out and reached for a pair of socks to at least adapt the sandals to the weather.
And so it was that this morning I stepped out onto the pavement into a full-blown existential crisis. Not only was I walking down the street with a boy wearing sandals-with-socks but worse, I KNEW for a fact that his mother had dressed him in them.
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October 19, 2005
Tick tock
Who knew the Dutch countryside could be so dangerous? While in the Achterhoek for a weekend we spent an uncommonly sunny autumn day walking through the woods around Montferland. Jacob astounded us by walking 5 of the 15kms we covered himself on his very-own-two-year-old-legs and as usual revelled in what passes for wide-open-spaces in this part of the world. Most of the day was spent searching for mushrooms. On the discovery of red mushroom with white spots we were all compelled to gather around and sing Kabouter Spillebeen.
Jacob also learnt that while he could admire mushrooms and even accost them with Dutch nursery rhymes he mustn't touch them ("niet aankommen") We know he took this to heart because he reminded Oma of the danger of touching mushrooms oh, at least 387 times? "oma, paddestoelen, niet aankomen!"
It was only once we were back in Amsterdam that we discovered Jacob had bought home with him his very own little friend. A tick, nestled snuggly into his upperthigh. The tick has been released into the sewers of De Pijp (probably to re-emerge as the-super-tick-that-ate-Amsterdam) and we are now breathlessly waiting for signs of Lime disease. Will he turn green?
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September 27, 2005
Jacob's visited cities 2
Now that Jacob is two it's timely to revisit the list I made nearly a year ago of Jacob's Visited Cities
Unexpecetd interruptions to my freelancer-lifestyle (read; work) and a disturbing tendency for time to move at mind-reeling-speeds have slowed us down a bit so for this year we can only add:
10.Geneva, Switzerland
11.Les Gets, France
12.Cologne, Germany
13.Harz Mountains, Germany
14.Finnish Lapland
15.Faralya, Turkey
Of course the year is not over yet........
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September 19, 2005
Happy Birthday Jacob
Today was Jacob's second birthday. Yesterday we celebrated by opening the presents sent by Grandma from Australia. Then it was down to iJsselstein for an gezellig afternoon with Oma, Opa, Maro, Dario, Tanja, Joost and all Jacob's other Ijsselstein friends. Today he celebrated with his Amsterdam friends at de Schep with fairy-cakes baked by Papa. On both days Bob de Bouwer played a big role much to Jacob's delight.
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August 24, 2005
The slide
Not yet two, Jacob now has hair gel (courtesy of Oma)and knows how to use it. Running his hand through his hair nonchalantly in the morning he checks himself in the mirror and pronounces his reflection "mooi" before toddling off to the door and announcing that its time go outside.
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August 01, 2005
Kabouter Plop
Some of us are slaving away at work. Meanwhile Jacob is cavorting in the thin and dribbly Dutch sun at Sprookjeswonderland Enkhuizen with the three musketeers.
I'd go to work for nothing to avoid having to take him to these sorts of places. As it is I get paid ludicrous amounts of money and I STILL don't have to take him to places like this. Where's the catch?
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July 09, 2005
The class of 2005
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June 29, 2005
The unmitigated joy of seeing real monkeys
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June 27, 2005
Screeching at the animals
We had a very relaxing weekend doing exactly the sorts of things that would have once driven you mad but that parenthood suddenly makes you enjoy. (Its part of that turning-your-brains-to-mush process)Saturday was an 'gezellig' afternoon in IJsselstein for Tanja and Aunt Bianca's birthday, where Jacob got to run around screaming with a flock of four year-olds and cousin Joost.
Sunday was even better with a visit to a childrens zoo with best mates Maro and Dario. Real-live-monkeys and lots of other scream-inducing excitements! Two days living on cookies, chips, ice-cream and assorted juices, all the things his mean mum won't normally give him. Plus he got to be outside nearly all day and with a heap of other children. Jacob's idea of heaven!
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June 06, 2005
Jacob, Joost en Tanja
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June 03, 2005
He may be biased
The incredible perceptiveness and impeccable good taste of my son has been established once and for all and is now set-in-concrete, totally undisputable, non-negotiable, irrefutable. Because last night after I rushed in from work and sat down at the table just-in-time to have dinner with him and Ron and Oma and Opa, he reached over, touched my arm and said, "Mama mooi".
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May 27, 2005
Romper Stomper
Today the temperature was hovering around 30 C. In the Netherlands this weather is called 'tropical' and is enough to have many Europeans stripping down to their underwear in public places. (Its not just the British after all.) Jacob chose to join them and spent the day in his romper. And crown.
Don't forget the crown.
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May 10, 2005
Moedersdag
My first serious-mothers-day present! Displaying creative and motor-skills quite amazing in a 19-month old Jacob has whipped up a beautiful bookmark for Mothers Day. Hopefully only the first in a long line of bent-cardboard-paint-splattered-crumbling-clay creations!
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May 01, 2005
A mooi koninginnedag
Jacob's new word is "mooi"*. The crown he made at creche for koninginnedag is 'mooi' and he wore it not only on koninginnedag itself but for three whole days. It is now held together by sticky-tape. The used-Bert from the rommelmarkt on koninginnedag was also 'mooi' and at 50 eurocents a bargain! As was my ball of green wool for 1 euro.
Altogether a 'mooi' weekend.
*mooi = beautiful/pretty/nice and you say it like "moy"
Posted by Faith at 10:49 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
April 25, 2005
Double trouble
A few months ago Jacob became an Australian citizen. This meant he could no longer enter Australia using his Dutch passport. Should we ever get around to it.
So here it is. His Australian passport arrived last week and he is now, at 1 year old, the proud owner of two-expensive but-highly-necessary-for-reasons-of-national-security passports. Double the bureaucracy, double the fun!
PS.Of course those photos are REALLY useful!
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April 20, 2005
Gratuitous Jacob
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