Day Two: Our new home

Delft Market

Day Two in Holland and I think that I officially avoided jet lag - yay! Note to self: I think that skipping a nap on day one proved to be worth while.

Can we fit that cheese wheel in our tiny European fridge?

True to a tradition that I keep when traveling out of the States, I began this morning with a muesli breakfast, or "Cruesli" because, according to Jasper, it's crunchy and filled with sugar, zuiker, as we learned to say in Dutch. Later, as Claire unpacked, and it poured down rain outside, I played hide-&-go-seek with Jasper and Oliver, which later at a family meeting, Jasper named as one thing that he appreciated from the day. Hide-&-go seek with Oliver is basically like this: after I count to ten, I follow the sound of Oliver's voice as he calls, "Chelsea, are you looking for me? I'm over here."


The big excursion of the day was going to a small grocery store. The 5 minute walk took much longer than expected because the boys were so excited to check out everything along the way - swans in the canal pecking at restaurant windows, stamp collections behind store windows, windmill souvenirs and the giant wooden clog in front of a souvenir shop, cheese wheels stacked in front of the cheese shop, and the many parked bicycles along the way.

When I was 20 yrs old I got my picture taken sitting in this very same clog

After grocery shopping, we made our way home to prepare dinner. Meanwhile, Jasper and Oliver were entertained with the pleasure of jumping and hiding on my bed. My room also serves as a great play room for the boys :). Finished with dinner and the weekly family meeting, where the family goes around to share one thing that they appreciate about somebody else, one issue or problem that needs discussing, and plans for the upcoming week, the boys headed downstairs for a bath while I spent time with sweet Annika. Annika is the type of baby who fulfills every adults' desires - she easily smiles and hardly ever fusses, even when her two older brothers, with the best intentions, jostle her and press their faces up to hers and say amusing things in repetition. It's plain to see that they adore their baby sister.

While doting on Annika, I can't help but think about a Ted Talk that I recently listened to called, "Cute Sexy Funny Sweet" or something like that. It explained that we humans are wired to think that babies are cute because otherwise we wouldn't feel the strong need to help them do everything. The psychologist also compared it to how many of us are wired to be attracted to the opposite sex so that we procreate. We're also wired to think that jokes are funny so we'll laugh. And we're wire to love our chocolate and sweets because if we weren't wired to enjoy it, we'd...er...probably die from dissatisfaction or something. That about sums up this acclaimed genius's talk.

While I bragged earlier about overcoming jet lag, I have decided that my bed time is the same as the young children's and it will feel heavenly to crawl into bed soon.

My heaven

So far, these swans are the biggest hit in Holland for the boys