Where is Here?

I'm still here. We're still here. Here is now the Netherlands. We are mid-move at the moment, staying with the Dutch grandparents after a month with the American grandparents. We're learning and exploring what “family” means. Figuring out ways to adapt to lots of changes while keeping our family together and working, loving, enjoying life – the four of us.

Peanut is doing grand. He's transitioned amazingly well from English to Dutch as the main language. The English-isms in his Dutch are gradually being replaced with Dutch. No longer do we hear “Papa, kan jij dit fixen?” Yesterday, he started to ask “why?” in Dutch. It's a minor triumph, partly because someone else will have to start coming up with answers!

Pumpkin is growing into cheerful, engaging pumpkin-ness. This little girl is a smiler – wakes up smiling, smiles at strangers, enchants. She sits up well now and spends a lot of time banging toys on surfaces. Slowly but slowly, we are trying to introduce some solids. That would be pear and only pear because I haven't managed to organize much else yet. Luckily for us, she seems to like it.

Our days have been filled with the work of organizing a life in a new country. Not new that we've never been here before, but new to us this time around. We spent our first week looking for housing, the second week working on the lease contract, and are now organizing utilities move details, furniture, and so forth. All of this impossible, of course, without the support of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Walks have helped. My favorite find has been the Asylum for Lost Stones (Opvangcentrum voor zwerfstenen).

We'll move in next week. Our dreams of a house in the woods were adjusted by the reality of the Dutch rental market (a whole long story there). We will be living in an apartment smack in the middle of the newest shopping area downtown. It will be the newest home we have ever lived in (only about 10 years old) and the oldest city we have ever lived in (2,000+). Adventures are sure to follow.