June

Now that Falco is a little bigger we want to do more biking: this is the Netherlands after all - flat as a pancake.To this end we bought a handy tag-along bike that hangs off the back of one of our bikes: he can pedal too and has his own handlebars and even a pirate flag. Falco was overjoyed with this innovation, especially once he discovered that he could keep Marjolein moving even when she stopped pedalling... like having a sort of outboard motor. Daniel loves it too, so we may put him on it for the longer trips and Falco on the back of my bike.

Larger Falco means that he was able to join in the Four-Evenings Walk (Avondvierdaagse) this year. That means four evenings of five kilometer walks, quite a lot for the little legs. He was the only one in his class that did it, even though he is one of the youngest and he did the whole thing cheerfully, barring a couple of hundred meters of piggyback on the first three evenings.

The fourth evening always ends up at the town square with brass bands and a big welcome. That means you do not return to the starting point and so we parked our bikes at the end point and trundled gentle back to the start. It was lovely weather, so we stopped for a light supper outside a cafe on the way. Just as we were settled in a pigeon dropped an enormous bird-turd on the middle of the table. After moving and cleaning up we had munchies and then set off cheerfully through a sudden rainshower. The rain got steadily heavier and added lightning and thunder but we soldiered on, borrowing binbags from a cafe to improvise rainsuits for the little guys. We got a little lost and entirely and completely drenched, but carried on in amazing good spirits all the way to the starting point, where we discovered that the Avondvierdaagse had been cancelled for the first time ever because of, wait for it, bad weather. Still astonishingly sanguine we made our way back to our bikes, which were at the end-point: so our kids walked the whole distance twice. We were very proud of them and pretty proud of ourselves for withstanding adversity so well.

Daniel, as you can see in the picture, is chaging teeth at the moment and has got a gap that you could drive a bus through. It gives him a vaguely vampiric look which pleases him no end. This month was also Father's Day which means getting breakfast in bed, sometimes very much in the bed. I do enjoy the things they make, but it is always rather challenging to combine art appreciation with juggling while entangled in a counterpane.

This was also the month for Street Play Day, which was fun for Daniel and Falco as Matthijs was off at a birthday party.Falco won an ancient pair of sunglasses at the shuffleboard and the photo of him wearing them makes him look a lot like me as a child. Falco went straight from the Play Day to his very first swimming lesson. He was very keen, as it is very much a big boy thing in his eyes. He quietly moved himself up into the second group the very next week until Marjolein warned the swimming master and had him hauled back into shallow water...

Marjolein did a miracle of logistics and managed to have all three of them stay over with friends so we could go to a party together. Unfortunately we did not make the party because Marjolein's shoulder played up, but the kids had a whale of time, very little sleep and Falco came back entirely covered in mozzie bites...

At schools urgent request we finally gave up on finding Daniel's hearing aid and bought him another. That was a whole heap of logistics to sort out and €1000 that we won't see again. We have born upon him that losing it again will mean us selling off his possessions in order to finance the replacement.

The ergotherapist also dropped by with Matthijs' test results. Unsurprisingly her test indicate that ergotherapy may help, but that may perhaps be true so it was wallet time again. The premise of ergotherapy is that some children have an imbalance between their sensory perception and may need stronger or weaker signals via the auditory, prioperception or visual channels. This would explain some of Matthijs bouncyness and tendency to lean and hang on things. To be continued....

Marjolein got landed with the boys on her own for a week because I went for some personal effectiveness training. I was wiped out at the end of the week because it was a highly intensive course with 18 hour days and she was wiped because we have three very active boys.

Daniel then fell ill and after a day and a half of high fever, joint pain, sore eyes and headache with the weekend coming up she called the quack to say "I have a Thursday afternoon question...". He took a look and decided it was the flu, but called us at five to say that he had been thinking and would like a second opinion from a pediatrician just to be on the safe side. He consulted and called back five minutes later to say that the pediatrician thought it was flu too, but wanted to check Daniel out just in case... So off to the hospital and into the clinic where they took a history and gave him a thorough check up. It was indeed just the flu, but we were glad they were careful and quick to act. There are some nasty things, like meningitus of course, that look a bit like flu but can carry your kid off if untreated.

Next Friday we had some friends over who had been to New South Wales with their kids and a camper van. They gave us lots of great tips and information, changing our itinerary from along the South coast to up the East. That was also the advice of Marjolein's aunt who lives in NSW. All this accompanied by thoughts of Marjolein's mother, who passed away a year ago now.

 

Daniel doet Jumpstyle dansen
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