11 November - St. Maarten

This year on November 11th, Kevin joined in his first St. Maarten celebration. St Maarten is celebrated in some areas of the Netherlands, (The province we live in is one of them). While the holiday has a religious background (you can read about here on Wikipedia: ) the modern celebration would be closest ( I think) to an American Halloween. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin

We met up with Winnie and Lars (from the 'Sprookjesbos' post, remember?) and we went to Winnie's sisters' house in Almere, about a 35 minute drive away, who has two girls, aged 4 and 7. It was a nice group of 4 children and 3 moms to go out together through the neighborhood.

While the kids don't dress up, they do make paper lanterns and set a candle in the middle (or the safety version is a little LED light on a plastic fishing pole apparatus) which they carry door to door, and then ring the door bell and sing a little song in exchange for some kind of treat.

It's a little rhyming song _ there are many versions, I guess, but we went simple, and the translated version goes something like this:

'Here comes St. Maarten

the cows have tails

the girls have skirts on

there goes St Maarten'

(it sounds cute in Dutch, really!)

Kevin enjoyed getting the candy, (although when they put a bowl in front of him, he can't seem to choose...he just stood there and looked overwhelmed by the decision of choosing just one treat out of a big bowl of treats, especially when there were different candies in the same bowl!) but no so much the singing until we were at the end of the hour and 3 houses away from where we started....then I heard him sing for the first time. Of course, at 2 1/2, with a home made lantern, he got candy just for showing up and being the cutie he is :-)

It was a fun evening, and much more enjoyable for mommy to join in with other Dutch families. I don't know that i would have taken Kevin on my own around even our small neighborhood. It was definitely a case of the more the merrier!

A day at the Efteling

In October, Jan-Kees' company had an outing at the Efteling, a disneyland style fairy tale amusement park in the south of the Netherlands. I've been twice before in my 10 years here, both times before Little Man. Even though this was something that should be a 'papa' event, I wsa asked to come along becuase the entrance covered two adults, and the thought of J-K on his own with Kevin in an acres big, crowded park made me more than a little nervous, so I tagged along for my own piece of mind, and to enjoy the day through the eyes of Little Man.

It was on a Sunday, which meant getting up at 6.00am, meeting up at 7.30 and driving the 1.5 hours south to get the park at around 9am. It was a very cold but clear morning, and after some warm coffee and a donut welcome session, we were allowed to hit the park at the 10am opening time, to be first in line for everything we wanted to do at that time of the day.

First we did the boat ride attraction '1001 nights', which was a bit freaky even for my taste and Kevin seemed to not like at all. His verdict: A little scary. Sso, off we went to a water ride where you get splashedby rapids and bump into other boats during rapids and mini waterfalls...kevin had a blast, (and the only one to stay dry) but it was still quite cool in the morning and both J-K and I ended up soaking wet.



From there we walked (Kevin ran, of course) to a different section of the park, then it was time to ride the carousel with papa so I could take pictures. From the carousel it was time to have a coffee, and by then Little Man (having been awake since 5.30) was getting quite grumpy, so for the first time that day he was strapped in the buggy (under loud and public protests, of course) , and feel asleep 5 mins later in mid whine about how he wanted to walk.


For the next hour, Kevin dozed in his buggy while we wandered through the rest of the park and formed the battle plan for the rest of the afternoon. There was the pagoda that takes you 100 feet in the air and does a slow turn so you have a view of the whole park, then we did the outdoor boat that lets your turn and wander through a man made lake/lagoon for 20 mins, and then it was time to hop on the choo choo train for a tour of the outer edge of the park, then back to the buggy and the long walk from where we were to the exits.

We stopped at the gift shop and turned a 5 cent piece (which looks similiar to a US penny) into a stretched and stamped souvenir, then he was allowed to pick one something as a reminder of the day and he chose a turtle from one of the rides he liked the least, but the animal he loved.

By then it was 3.30 in the afternoon and mommy at least was done for the day, but I still had the drive back to do. Kevin watched a DVD and talked to himself (and us) about the day, the cars we passed, the cows we saw......1.5 hours of running commentary from a wired 2.5 year old...it makes the time and kilometeres pass, that's for sure :-)

Bad Mommy!

I know, I know.....It's been a while. Life has been especially hectic (which isn't a good excuse, but there you go) but I have been taking photos occasionally. So, here's the first in a series of what Little Man has been up since the last couple of months:

1) Playing outside whenever possible:

There is a park nearby the house (It's one house away close) where Kevin likes to play. The summer was one of the worst on record here, but September and October had more nice weather days (as in, it didn't rain) than May, June, July and August combined, so we took advantage of it every chance we got.

The park has two sets of playground equipment: One for small children with safety everything, then a section for bigger kids with a big slide you can can only get to the top of by climbing a rope-net ladder and a big see-saw. There is also a soccer (football) field and in between the two sets of playground equipment: a basketball hoop and ping pong table. Something for everyone I guess.

He always starts out at the age appropriate playground, but the lure of the big slide is just too much for Little Man. The rope net ladder one needs to scale to reach the top of the (I guess) 8 foot tall slide is spaced too big for his height and legs (as it should be) but that means mommy gets to 'help' him climb the ladder each time he wants to slide. The slide at the other end of the playground that he can do all by himself is too short and easily conquered compared to Slide Everest. I love to see the sense of adventure he has, and the total lack of fear when it comes to these kind of things. I'm not sure if that makes him crazy, or just incredibly trusting of his mommy's ability to cure everything with a kiss (in which case: crazy!)