JuneIts the last month of school and summer has arrived. Plenty of sunny days, which we particularly appreciated during the “Avondvierdaagse”: four evenings of walking with your kids, 5km for Daniel and Falco and 10km for Matthijs. Matthijs school was pretty well organised but the new school did not officially do it so it was just parents organising it and there was no separate 10km group. This meant that some older kids came on the 5km, goofed around (ringing doorbells and stuff) and did not get called on it: their parents were nowhere to be found. It was a shame Daniel did not get to do the 10km as it is generally a nicer route. They all got a medal but only Matthijs got the traditional bunch of flowers: much better organised. We celebrated the occasion by taking all of us to a café.
Falco’s reading is coming along nicely and he has also started writing. His spelling is still very “phonetic” and there are some mirrored letters, so you have to code-break it a bit, but not a bad start at all. The picture shows a card Marjolein got from him with a picture of him cuddling her: the caption is (in Dutch) “mamar I lufyew”, so sweeeeet….
We particularly noticed his reading at the Haarlem Comicstrip Weekend. We wound up sitting comfortably on the terrace of a nice café with peppery “Strip Beer” and all three boys next to us deeply immersed in albums. Every now and then another album would be pulled off the stack (they were allowed three each) and they would pass them around.
The new school and having a little brother nipping at his heels has stimulated Daniel’s reading too: he is on his fifth “Dolf Weerwolf” book. These are very popular children’s books by Paul van Loon. I would cheerfully give Mr van Loon a medal: this is now the second of my children that has got hooked on reading by his books and Falco also wants to read them as soon as he gets a chance. Daniel is now at the 5th or 6th “AVI” reading level, so he is all caught up with his class.
The swimming club Daniel goes to called to say that there were often problems with Daniel in the group (not listening, hitting, pinching). They asked if it would be ok if one of their commissioners, who had been an educator for many years and studied pedagogy, observed him and talked to us. We were fine with that and the lady came by for a talk. When she heard that Daniel was only just eight she said that that explained a lot already. She had thought him younger from his appearance (he is rather small by Dutch standards). She still thought he was behaving a bit old for his age and acting out, looking for attention. He might be copying someone; did he perhaps have a highly active, dominant older brother?
Marjolein explained that he also had a hearing problem, which had had some impact: Matthijs got nice therapy ladies and Daniel got to have his ear (painfully) sucked clean in the clinic every three months. He is also older than the rest of his group, because he started later. His behaviour is also better sitting by the pool than in the water: he hears better then. He also prefers “tough stuff” like diving: looking for attention.
We shall try to make more Daniel-time at home and generate some personal, individual triumphs for him. The pedagogy-lady will give the swimming teacher some tips and expects that to turn things around. She said that he swims very well. I hope that he keeps on getting good results with swimming: he genuinely loves it and it is special for him.
Falco is also a dose of salts on occasion: full of tricks and pretty resilient. When informed that Mama did not want him sleeping together with his brother because they were annoying her, he said, “but I am only small, so I am only a little bit annoying”. Yes, well…
He also gained a friend this month: some new people moved in on the other side of the square. Falco hit it off with their six-year-old straight away; they played all afternoon while the boys parents hammered and painted. The new friend will be going to Falco’s school and even be in the same class.
Marjolein had a visitor over for the weekend too: a lady she knew from her “stopping smoking” mailing list. They stopped smoking together nine years ago. The group from then, somewhat thinned by the vicissitudes of life still gets together once a year to do something fun; for women this seems to mean saunas, meals and enormous amounts of talking. Her friend Merel she also met via the list and also Lies the mother of our super-babysitter Emmy. It was nice for her to have a weekend to catch up with an old friend.
The end of the month we cashed in all the fitness points we have built up by faithfully running every month since April by doing the Haarlem Canal Run. I built up a bit faster than Marjolein and went for the 9.2km at the last minute while she stayed with the original 4.6km. This was already a bit challenging because she lost a lot of training time to illness recently. We both finished: Marjolein in 32:47 as 446th of 472 participants and I managed to creep in under the hour at 57:02, 987th of 1000. Not bad for beginners. I nearly died a death in the second 4.6 because I did the first round way too fast. Must learn to pace self…
It was the World Cup this month too, so Marjolein stayed glued to the telly, amazed that she was the only person in a four-male household who was remotely interested. She is getting Falco interested gradually but I am still more interested watching her supporting vociferously than the game itself.
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