school for the girls...

..... means work for me.

Our decision to send our kids to a Waldorf School was a very conscious one. We checked out a couple of schools about 3 years ago, when Lara was getting close to the age of 4 and were having a hard time deciding. The closest school is the same one I used to go to as a child. This school has now become one of the what are known as 'Black Schools' here in Holland. It has nothing to do with actual black people, and I still think it's the worst naming choice in history (except for that guy who named his son Pilot Instructor) but it is what it is. What it means is that more than 50% of the children who go to that school were not born in Holland and usually do not speak the Dutch language as fluently as a Dutch native would. In the case of the school I used to go to the percentage has gone up to about 75%. While I am all for mixing cultures, hearing different languages, learning from each other's differences and being tolerant, I also find it really important that my children hear and learn proper Dutch, and unfortunately that has become something of a problem in these 'Black' schools.

Our next option was a school a little bit further away and we thought we had found our school. We enrolled Lara in pre-school there (two mornings a week from the age of 2,5 - 4). While she enjoyed her time there I kept feeling like this still wasn't the right place, and I knew that if I was going to make a decision about changing schools I would have to do it soon before Lara started going on a daily basis and got really settled. Reasons that that school still felt 'off' included the size of the groups (34 children in 1 class!), the amount of junk food that was served every time someone had a birthday (seriously, you would not believe the money some parents would spend on treats for everyone) and the sheer amount of plastic toys that were stacked clear up to the ceiling on nearly every wall to ensure any form of imagination/dreaming/natural discovery is discouraged. Also I must admit that I didn't feel comfortable with the other parents. It felt a LOT like high school all over again, with the cool group, the weird group, the jocks, the gossips..... not good.

  Then my dear friend Hellen, who has a daughter the same age as Julia, told me about the school she had attended as a child, and that she was probably going to have her children go to as well. It was a Waldorf school, and though I had heard of them before I didn't actually know a whole lot about them. All I knew is that it was where all the hippies took their children, and that the running gag is that when you've gone to school at a Waldorf school you can knit a fairy but you can't spell fairy. Safe to say I was a little unsure. It doesn't help that they're called 'Free Schools' here, making them sound like kids just hang out there doing whatever they want, which is probably dangle from the ceiling half the time and poke a pile of mud with a stick the other half.

 Then I began to find out more and more about how this particular Waldorf school I was considering operated, and that a lot has changed in anthroposophical education since my childhood. Mainly I learned that at a Waldorf school a child is encouraged to learn what they need to learn, in a way that works for them. For some that is with their head, for others with their hands, for some others with their hearts. Let's face it, we all learn best when we are able to experience something new with as many senses as possible, then do it ourselves and finally really get a feel for it and make it our own. They are also very aware that we are not just our body, we have a spirit and children don't just magically appear on earth after a miracle of nature. They believe we existed before we came to earth, but leave everyone quite free to fill in details as in what form or level of consciousness that might have been. They also celebrate Christian/Pagan holidays and are very close to nature. Children bake their own bread on Tuesdays, go for a walk in the neirby forest on Fridays and as the seasons change, so do the songs that are sung every single day.

Upon visiting the Wonnebald for the first time I was struck by the atmosphere. It felt so calm, warm and welcoming. Simple toys made from natural materials were arranged in inviting ways for play. A 'treehouse' stood in the corner of the classroom for the 4-6 year olds and you could tell the children were engaged in lots of arts, music, nature watching and story-telling. The other parents were so nice to me as well, and Lara immediately took to 'Juffie Marianne'. We were sold.

Lara and Julia still absolutely love their school and have many friends, and we haven't regretted our decision for a moment....
....except perhaps when I am yet again asked to make something by hand for my child that every other person would simply buy at the store for a Euro or two. They really get a kick out of these things. Each Christmas/Easter/Halloween/Sinterklaas/Summer Solstice I receive a note from school describing (very badly too I might add) what they would like me to make for my child this time so they can learn the value of receiving small gifts from the heart that took time and love to create. Or that, in my case,took more time and and a lot of yelling at inanimate objects to make.

The latest example: a special custom-made pencil case (that I received the wrong measurements for!) to hold all the craft/writing equipment Lara will need now she's begun to learn to read and write. I was sure happy to have that sewing machine I got earlier this year because if I attempted to make this thing by hand (like I made her tote for her gym clothes by hand when she first started going) I think you would found me running around the house wearing my underpants on my head and laughing maniacally... again.

help me, I can't stop...

... cooking and baking! 

I thought everything was fine and that I needn't worry about a thing, until last Friday when I somehow decided that I needed to bake a plum tart that required a home-made plum jam, a frangipane, and a made-from-scratch pie crust.

I spent a full 3 hours in the kitchen completing each task and suffered only one minor disaster when, after having frozen the pie crust for an hour and attempting to pre-bake it for 10 mins, it drooped down the insides of the lovely earthenware dish and didn't appear very capable of actually holding all of the other ingredients together. I tried to push it back up a bit with my fingers (forgetting it came straight out of the oven on the first go - ouch) but it slumped right back down and I got a little nervous. 

 I decided to go ahead and throw in the jam, then the frangipane and then the fresh, quartered plums macerated in icing sugar, and finally to carefully sprinkle some almond slivers on top - as if their weight was the one thing that was going to make this thing collapse upon removal from its baking container. When you've put 3 hours of work into something, you kind of want to be able to enjoy the end result, you know?

It all looked terribly soupy once assembled and my nerves were getting a little out of control, something that was worsened by my crazy idea that I could stick the tart in the oven, leave home to pick the girls up from school on The Beast, ask Lara's teacher a few quick questions and hurry on back home in time to take the darn thing out of the oven.

Of course I hadn't considered Lara falling down the stairs at school and needing care before we could head back. Once we determined she was in one piece and she was able to stop sobbing I tried to pedal that Beast back home as quickly as my legs could handle (which sadly was so slow that I got overtaken by an old lady, twice!). The recipe said that the tart would need about an hour in the oven and by the time I got home it had been in there for at least 75 minutes, but a quick check revealed a still sort of soggy looking mess so I left it in there, set the timer to an additional 15 minutes, and prayed. At the end of those 15 minutes I noticed bits were starting to go a bit blackish so it had to come out. Much to my relief it didn't look too bad! It looked like it might actually hold together and taste kind of good!

 And, well, it did. It tasted VERY good, much to my surprise. So good some people had seconds (and thirds). Jamie Oliver sure knows his way around plums and almonds. I love how the colours in this piece of sweet yet tart yumminess perfectly go with autumn.

be very wary...

... of all things hairy.  

Especially 6'6" hairy things with a headache. 

I remember the days when I would spend and hour, at the very least, on my hairdo on a daily basis. That's after the hour I had already spent (wasted?) putting on makeup. I lived for make-overs and even put my little brother through quite a few of them (sorry about the lipstick and frilly frock Mike... oh and sorry about the pictures, don't worry I wouldn't post them here. Not today anway.) and 3-hour makeup experiments were a must at every pajama party.

I'm so glad the experimental days are (mostly) over ::a 29yo girl can still have her fun once in a while and pretend she can get away with metallic blue eye shadow, right?::, and that what they say about getting older and becoming more efficient is turning out to be completely true. It's a good thing I've become efficient too, otherwise I have no idea how I would be able to make things like this happen in the morning:

She wants makeup for her Birthday in December. Her 7th Birthday...

I give it exactly 2 more years before I will be the one receiving the make-overs.

music monday V2.3

Can you believe it's Fall again already? Time has flown by at ludicrous speed and I can't seem to make it slow down. It's most apparent in little Elliot, who is quickly becoming not so little. It's breaking my heart!! We're not sure we'll ever have another baby so to think this might be last time he wears those too-adorable little 3-month PJ's, or that the time is soon coming where he'll have outgrown his bassinet, is just killing me. To make matters worse he's losing ALL of that adorable full mop of dark, dark hair he had when he was first born. I guess he'll go blonde like the others, sigh. Nothing wrong with blonde, of course, but I was kind of hoping for a little boy with brown locks. 

We've had the most amazing time in Venice, but nothing makes you appreciate your home and your family like being away from them. It was nice to come back home and to feel excited about getting back into my routine and and about being able to cuddle Lara, Julia and Max again. We're so grateful to Loek, Emily, Marianne and Ada for looking after them while we were away! They did a great job at being surrogate parents for a few days and the kids hardly even noticed we were gone.

Last Friday Sander's brother Maarten had a birthday and when I asked the girls what they wanted to do for their uncle their immediate reply was 'bake a rainbow cake'. So bake a rainbow cake is exactly what we did!
Warning: you might need some ritalin after viewing these pictures.

Can you think of a better cake for a 5 and a 6 year old to bake?
And how can anybody say no when 2 adorable little girls want you to taste their creation? We were all bouncing off the walls by then end of the afternoon, and my right eye is still twitching.

What's that? You want to know what music we listened to while baking the  
Clown Vomit Cake?
I'll tell you what we listened to. We listened to every single song that makes a little girl jump up and down and do silly dances, that's what we listened to.

1. Spice Girls - Wannabe

You thought you'd never have to listen to it again? You were WRONG. You shouldn't have gone ahead and had yourself a couple of daughters.

2. Reel 2 Real - I Like To Move It

3. The Beatles - Twist and Shout

4.The Soggy Bottom Boys - I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow

5. Jackie Wilson - Higher and Higher

Unfortunately I couldn't find a good version on Youtube so I went with this one instead, which is also pretty amazing. BBC has the best music shows and competitions!

Go on, jiggle around, you know you want to.

what I learned...

...while in Venice.

1. There is only one thing that Italian men adore more than women, and that is babies. We were a hit everywhere we went, or I should say, Elliot was a hit everywhere we took him.

2. I could easily eat nothing but Italian ice cream for the rest of my life. It comes in flavours like 'ricotta, fig & caramel', it blew my mind!

3. I detest tourists and being a tourist. We are an annoying bunch who do not take the time to properly read the instructions for surviving a beautiful city like Venice. Actually it's more about having the city survive us.

4. The greatest sin one can commit while in Italy is to order butter with one's bread.

5. The best restaurants are hidden in the tiniest streets.

6. If someone approaches you on the street whispering 'Hermès?' in your ear, you have exactly 2 minutes before the police arrive and try to arrest you.

7. When utterly lost in the winding streets and alleyways of Venice, don't try to follow a Française with a map and a suitcase. She will shake you.

Please feel free to use this knowledge to your benefit should you ever find yourself somewhere in beautiful Italia!

See all that gunk on the floor of the train? Totally our fault.