"My good opinion once lost, is lost forever". That's not actually true, but it is a good quote, so very Darcy-esque. It is true that my opinions very rarely change, when I feel strongly about something. I experienced one such change last week.
On September 18th, I saw a large crowd of senior citizens dressed in old fashioned military uniforms, right next to the museum playground, where I had the kids play. I assumed it was some regiment reunion. There were WWII machines, tanks, engines everywhere, part of the museum perhaps. The day after, Saturday, there was a big party going on next to our house, bars, music, everyone seemed to be out on the street celebrating. I took the kids to that same playground and the place was packed with people. There was castle trampoline for the kids to jump in. Some of the kids had painted faces from the fair in town, and some kids wore army jackets, fighter pilot suits, or little army pins. I got a kick out of Micah and Ezra staring perplexed into some of the painted kids faces and giggling at them. As I parked my car, a woman in her early 40s, with her two kids slowed down to stare at it (quite common here as we drive perhaps the only Scion XB in Netherlands if not Europe). The older boy, looked at the license plate and said to his mom in Dutch that we were from India. I corrected him and said we were from Indiana, in the United States. The woman immediately started gushing about America. This surprised me. I thought that most Europeans hated Americans. She was wearing a sort of bomber jacket herself. I asked her what all the commotion and fuss was about and she said it was in celebration of Market Garden. I had seen the signs but didn't put two and two together (Ok, I thought it was advertising some Market for Gardening here, because they do love gardening). 65 years ago operation Market Garden liberated the Netherlands from the Nazis. It will actually be 65 years next year in Arnhem, but Eindhoven was liberated 9 months earlier than the rest of Netherlands on 18th of September and this fact is celebrated every year. I was surprised at the gratitude for this liberation apparent in this woman who clearly had not been part of the war generation. As I proceeded to the playground with my kids, I sat down and watched the many children who for the most part were supervised by their smiling grandparents. I imagined that many of them had seen, lived, and perhaps served in the war. What it must have meant for them to be liberated from Hitler's oppression. Here they were 65 years later, their own children grown, surrounded by the laughter of their grandchildren, speaking their own language, and playing happily, free from fear and want. It was watching them that suddenly made me revise the opinion I held against the war in Iraq. So far I've felt very strongly that President Bush was foolish to march into Iraq. I thought he might have learned through reading history books, that the middle east is best not messed with. It has never come to a good end. I thought it was an offensive strike, and that the evidence for attack was phony and didn't warrant such an action. I lamented the loss of so many American troops, and the loss their families had to bear. In short, I was against it, and as years have passed, and the middle-east-meddling-mess has gotten more pronounced, I felt my opinion only solidifying. But that day, when I heard that woman express her gratitude for the liberation, and saw the happy grandparents, I started to think that despite all the antagonism against the US (or the "Coalition Forces"?!) there might have been some Iraqis who felt like this woman, grateful to be free of a Hitler-like despot, a tyrant, a murderer. In addition to that, my mom recounted a comment from one of the members of our Church here in the Netherlands, that he happened to share that Sunday. He is from Iraq. He has no idea if his parents are still alive, or his other brothers. His parents had saved up money so they could arrange for at least one of their sons to flee the country, and grow up free from fear and oppression. Anyway, I'm not sure what you make of this post, I just wanted to write it down, because I wanted to remember that experience.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Regrets
Do you know what social workers are for? I assumed they helped people in difficult situations find solutions, cope, or comfort of some type. This week I had a visit from a social worker to help me apply for the appropriate government fundings for Ezra. Now I'm thinking that either this lady was really bad at her job or a social worker's job is to discourage and dishearten. She basically told me, with the accusation of thoughtlessness clear in her tone and body language, that she couldn't understand why we moved here, it was a bad decision for us financially, bad for Ezra because there is no school for him, Micah couldn't learn Dutch, they'll both be disadvantaged because they don't speak Dutch, and they'll make no friends, and we would probably end up moving back to America in 2 months because it would be too hard here. Then when I outlined the treatment plan that Dr.Greenspan gave us for Ezra (10 min sensory diet, 20 min floortime therapy, 30 minutes planned activities, for 8 hours a day during 3 years) she just looked at me and said: is this what you really want? This is too hard. She might have been going for empathetic, but rather than helping me find solutions I found myself looking at brick walls that were about to fall in on me. I didn't know what to say. I just looked at her in disbelief thinking to myself, if the foremost authority in the world on childhood developmental delays gives you a plan with which to help your child make up for a brain defect that is not his fault, so he can some day live on his own and be a valid member of the community, would you NOT do everything you can, so your child can have a chance at a life? Even if it meant giving up your dreams, your time, and worst of all risking that your second child feels less valued and loved because Mommy spends so much time with his older brother.
Some days I wish for nothing more than for people to understand how hard it is to raise a child with special needs. Talking to this social worker on the phone the first time, she seemed to be the first person with no special needs children of her own to validate how difficult it is. I felt understood and for a brief moment, better. But when that understanding of the difficulty of the situation carried on by her drawing out in minute detail exactly what can, has, and might still go wrong....I don't know. Perhaps being understood is overrated.
I have been looking for a school for Ezra. He is already very delayed in receptive and expressive language. Adding another language, one that I don't speak, would further delay him significantly. Perhaps I should explain a bit about brain defects such as Ezra's. Most kids come wired right. As long as they receive stimulation and can form an attachment to a person they will develop without much help. They will learn to walk and talk, share and play, use their imagination, and relate to other human beings. There are things you can do to enhance the intelligence of your baby. The more purposeful and loving interaction it gets from one on one attention, the more brain connections are made. The more brain connections the higher the intellect. Now most of this happens all before the age of 6. By 6 the brain is pretty much hardwired. One of the reasons kids with a brain defect are so far behind is because if it isn't diagnosed early enough, they miss this hard wiring phase, and it becomes infinitely harder to catch up. Imagine trying to catch up with a car that is driving 100 miles ahead of you at 80 mph while you're driving 81 mph.
Anyway, so here in the Netherlands there are four types of schools. There are the regular dutch schools that have 25-32 kids in the class. Impossible for Ezra. Too much noise, too many distractions. Then there are the special needs schools: the one for the blind, the physically and mentally handicapped, the communication delays, and then the ones with behavioral problems.
So where does Ezra fit in? I don't know. He needs a place where he can receive one on one attention, but also interaction with typically developing peers. It seems that here they have only either handicapped or typically developing. It is very discouraging. I won't launch into detail about finding schools.
What is so hard about this situation right now, is that he has only 2 years left for his brain to be hardwired, and the fear that I (and Dr.Greenspan) have is that adding Dutch is going to significantly delay him in his already hindered communication. If it was German I wouldn't worry so much, because at least I speak it...but Dutch. And just having him stay home with me is not making any of us happy long term. I saw him light up like a Christmas tree when there were lots of kids on the playground. He wants so much to interact with them. In this regard I regret leaving Bloomington. He had great friends there, and a great school. But then what else was there to do? Aaron got this job, and a job is a blessing. And the fact that Aaron needs cat scans every 6 months for his cancer follow up and we couldn't afford health care in the States...we had to come to Europe.
Anyway, it is getting late and the rock music from across the street has finally stopped. They are celebrating 65 years liberation of Eindhoven.
Some days I wish for nothing more than for people to understand how hard it is to raise a child with special needs. Talking to this social worker on the phone the first time, she seemed to be the first person with no special needs children of her own to validate how difficult it is. I felt understood and for a brief moment, better. But when that understanding of the difficulty of the situation carried on by her drawing out in minute detail exactly what can, has, and might still go wrong....I don't know. Perhaps being understood is overrated.
I have been looking for a school for Ezra. He is already very delayed in receptive and expressive language. Adding another language, one that I don't speak, would further delay him significantly. Perhaps I should explain a bit about brain defects such as Ezra's. Most kids come wired right. As long as they receive stimulation and can form an attachment to a person they will develop without much help. They will learn to walk and talk, share and play, use their imagination, and relate to other human beings. There are things you can do to enhance the intelligence of your baby. The more purposeful and loving interaction it gets from one on one attention, the more brain connections are made. The more brain connections the higher the intellect. Now most of this happens all before the age of 6. By 6 the brain is pretty much hardwired. One of the reasons kids with a brain defect are so far behind is because if it isn't diagnosed early enough, they miss this hard wiring phase, and it becomes infinitely harder to catch up. Imagine trying to catch up with a car that is driving 100 miles ahead of you at 80 mph while you're driving 81 mph.
Anyway, so here in the Netherlands there are four types of schools. There are the regular dutch schools that have 25-32 kids in the class. Impossible for Ezra. Too much noise, too many distractions. Then there are the special needs schools: the one for the blind, the physically and mentally handicapped, the communication delays, and then the ones with behavioral problems.
So where does Ezra fit in? I don't know. He needs a place where he can receive one on one attention, but also interaction with typically developing peers. It seems that here they have only either handicapped or typically developing. It is very discouraging. I won't launch into detail about finding schools.
What is so hard about this situation right now, is that he has only 2 years left for his brain to be hardwired, and the fear that I (and Dr.Greenspan) have is that adding Dutch is going to significantly delay him in his already hindered communication. If it was German I wouldn't worry so much, because at least I speak it...but Dutch. And just having him stay home with me is not making any of us happy long term. I saw him light up like a Christmas tree when there were lots of kids on the playground. He wants so much to interact with them. In this regard I regret leaving Bloomington. He had great friends there, and a great school. But then what else was there to do? Aaron got this job, and a job is a blessing. And the fact that Aaron needs cat scans every 6 months for his cancer follow up and we couldn't afford health care in the States...we had to come to Europe.
Anyway, it is getting late and the rock music from across the street has finally stopped. They are celebrating 65 years liberation of Eindhoven.
Recipe for the Crumble
As requested here is my crumble recipe.
Ingredients for crispy outside:
2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 tsps baking powder, 2 beaten eggs, lemon zest. Rub between your fingers to make streusel. Then melt butter and pour evenly over the mixture once it is covering the fruit.
Ingredients for softer streusel:
Equal measures of sugar and flour, and add some freshly grated lemon zest. Add butter to make streusel. I don't ever measure how much butter I put in, but I'm guessing if you put a cup each of flour and sugar, it's about 8 tbsp of butter. I just check for the consistency of the streusel. It should be forming nice little round clots, throughout, not too greasy, not too dry.
Bake at 350 fahrenheit or 180 celsius for about one hour. You can start checking after 45 minutes. This tastes especially good if you serve it with some vanilla pudding when it's cooled down, or vanilla/caramel/or cinnamon ice cream, depending on which fruit you put in.
Some tips:
If you're using berries, you really should dust with flour. Especially blueberries tend to expand. The ratio between streusel and fruit is up to you, but be aware that more fruit than streusel will cause the fruit juices to bubble up around the streusel -especially if you used the soft streusel recipe, which I prefer, by the way. It tastes just fine, even if it bubbles. However don't fill the dish too high with fruit or you'll have a huge mess in your oven.
Also, here is my real secret which I will share with you. Lemon zest seems to bring out the natural flavor of most fruits, but you can't really substitute with dried lemon zest that you can get in little bottles here in Europe. When you zest the lemon hold it over the ingredients. By grating the lemons right over the ingredients the very potent essential oils are sprayed finally on the ingredients, and that is what gives it such an amazing taste.
Enjoy.
- butter a baking or pie dish
- fill 2/3 to 3/4 full with fresh fruit of the season. Canned fruit works too, but nothing compares to fresh blueberries. I usually put in two types of fruit. In the one in the picture I put in blue berries and thinly sliced, peeled apples.
- Sprinkle lightly with lemon zest and sugar. You don't really need the sugar if the fruit is really sweet and in season. I usually also dust the fruit with a thin layer of flour.
Ingredients for crispy outside:
2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 2 tsps baking powder, 2 beaten eggs, lemon zest. Rub between your fingers to make streusel. Then melt butter and pour evenly over the mixture once it is covering the fruit.
Ingredients for softer streusel:
Equal measures of sugar and flour, and add some freshly grated lemon zest. Add butter to make streusel. I don't ever measure how much butter I put in, but I'm guessing if you put a cup each of flour and sugar, it's about 8 tbsp of butter. I just check for the consistency of the streusel. It should be forming nice little round clots, throughout, not too greasy, not too dry.
Bake at 350 fahrenheit or 180 celsius for about one hour. You can start checking after 45 minutes. This tastes especially good if you serve it with some vanilla pudding when it's cooled down, or vanilla/caramel/or cinnamon ice cream, depending on which fruit you put in.
Some tips:
If you're using berries, you really should dust with flour. Especially blueberries tend to expand. The ratio between streusel and fruit is up to you, but be aware that more fruit than streusel will cause the fruit juices to bubble up around the streusel -especially if you used the soft streusel recipe, which I prefer, by the way. It tastes just fine, even if it bubbles. However don't fill the dish too high with fruit or you'll have a huge mess in your oven.
Also, here is my real secret which I will share with you. Lemon zest seems to bring out the natural flavor of most fruits, but you can't really substitute with dried lemon zest that you can get in little bottles here in Europe. When you zest the lemon hold it over the ingredients. By grating the lemons right over the ingredients the very potent essential oils are sprayed finally on the ingredients, and that is what gives it such an amazing taste.
Enjoy.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Verdi Requiem in Brussels
I was chatting with Michelle DeYoung on facebook. Turned out she was singing the Verdi Requiem in Brussels on Thursday. She got us some tickets (thanks Michelle). I won't go into a lengthy review of the concert, which was excellent. Suffice it to say that the conductor was very energetic. I was equally impressed and amused by the silences he created. Hard to believe he's only 34. Having done the requiem with the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir last year, I thought that the 60 member choir was a bit thin compared to the 150 singers in ISC. Still, very nice. Michelle was easily the most enjoyable, never wavering in her vocal splendor and control. Her voice reminded me of a roaring river of smooth chocolate. Hearing the Requiem made me ache to get back into good practicing habits and to start looking for an agent here. Anyway, all during the concert I couldn't help but feel blessed. What a great date: to hear my most favorite composition ever, sung by a fantastic singer friend, in the city I love more than any other city in the world, with my husband, and then to go out after the concert to enjoy frites and a piping hot waffle while strolling on Grand Place. The Hotel de Ville was even lit up with a laser light show to a very strange but funny mixture of classical music and Abba. Aaron had to stop at one of the many chocolate stores that were still open despite the late hour. I feel so very fortunate and blessed. I didn't take any pictures because our camera couldn't have handled the darkness even if I had remembered to bring it along.
A new tradition
When we arrived in Eindhoven we soon discovered that the Dutch have very small ovens, and often have built in combi-ovens that you can use as a microwave (which they call magnetron here) and as a regular oven, or a combination of both. These are very small little contraptions and I was highly suspicious of them to say the least. In my mind I was already adapting my thanksgiving turkey recipe to cornish game hens. Nevertheless having picked far too many berries for 5 people to eat I decided to make a crumble and give these combi-ovens a shot. It turned out really great, thanks to the hot air convection setting. When we moved into our house we bought a combi-oven and my family has come to expect a crumble every Sunday. Truth be told I don't mind. It's easy to prepare, and if I had to pick my absolute favorite dessert it would be the crumble made with fresh fruit of the season.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Prehistoric Museum in Genneper Parken
Beginning of the week I took the kids to the openlichtmuseum, which means open air museum, right here in Eindhoven. It is a prehistoric village with reenactments. I'll keep this post short and let the pictures do the talking. The kids had the best time jumping on the beds and chasing the chicken. All I can say is I'm just amazed how they lived back then. I can't even fathom what life would be like with no running water (at the very least). I highly recommend this activity to families with kids of any age.
This is the first playground we found when we arrived. It is in Genneper Park. We had to get used to these different swings here.
This is the first playground we found when we arrived. It is in Genneper Park. We had to get used to these different swings here.
Beekse Bergen Safari Park
About 1/2 hour drive from Best outside of Tilburg is the Safari Park of Beekse Bergen. This was one of our funnest outings so far. I was very impressed with the set up of the park. So far when I took the kids to the zoo they didn't last long because the tiny playground they had was always overcrowded, and just walking around in the stroller wasn't too fun. The animals were usually a bit far away too. In this park you could see the animals either on a safari bus tour (which really is a normal bus painted with either a giraffe or zebra pattern), walk the whole park in 3 kilometers, take a boat ride, or drive through with your own car. On top of that they had a really big playground at the beginning of the zoo and then a smaller playground just about every 100 meters.
The kids lasted an unheard 4 hours, simply because they got to run, climb and slide. We first took the bus tour which wasn't a very good idea, because the bus stopped a lot and the tour guide prattled about the animals in dutch.
The kids were soon bored and only distracted by the sandwiches I brought. So I opted for walking back from the Northern point of the park where the bus had dropped us off. Finally I took the kids through the park in our car. We saw Chitas up close, right next to the car.
And of course the ever popular petting zoos. Dutch really have a fondness for petting zoos. Every little town has one.
The funnest part of it was feeding the giraffe right through my car window. I got such a kick out of giving it a cracker, that I couldn't stop laughing, and the kids were laughing at me in the back. Great fun, great park. Highly recommend it.
In case you wonder what a giraffe looks like when it sticks her head through your car window!
The kids lasted an unheard 4 hours, simply because they got to run, climb and slide. We first took the bus tour which wasn't a very good idea, because the bus stopped a lot and the tour guide prattled about the animals in dutch.
The kids were soon bored and only distracted by the sandwiches I brought. So I opted for walking back from the Northern point of the park where the bus had dropped us off. Finally I took the kids through the park in our car. We saw Chitas up close, right next to the car.
And of course the ever popular petting zoos. Dutch really have a fondness for petting zoos. Every little town has one.
The funnest part of it was feeding the giraffe right through my car window. I got such a kick out of giving it a cracker, that I couldn't stop laughing, and the kids were laughing at me in the back. Great fun, great park. Highly recommend it.
In case you wonder what a giraffe looks like when it sticks her head through your car window!
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| Beekse Bergen Safari Park |
Monday, September 7, 2009
Maastricht
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| Maastricht |
There is so much to be discovered here. How I would love to stroll the halls of the Louvre and visit the many museums in this corner of Europe. I still plan on visiting the Van Gogh museum of course, have to be true to my bucket list, but for the most part I've had to abandon/postpone my plans of cultural excursions due to the fact that my kids are only 2 and 3 years old, have a great need for movement, and really just don't care about museums. I remember not caring about them either until I was about 16 years old or so, I think. As a compromise I decided (in behalf of my children, so I compromised by myself, ha) that we would go see great places and make finding fun fountains and playgrounds our mission. The kids like fountains, and they are happy when they get to play. I get to see a bit of the city. It's a good thing that so many places in Europe are like a open air historical museums anyway. That was certainly the case with Maastricht. We arrived early-ish this Saturday morning and parked right outside the market square. On our way to the market there was a toy store with a life size teddy bear outside the door. Drawn to big oversized stuffed animals as any child would be Ezra read the invitation correctly and went inside and Micah followed...or perhaps the beat wasn't an invitation at all and was meant to scare the kids off. It had some of the nicest toys I've ever seen. The kids immediately tested some toys that were sitting out and the owners missed only 4 beats before chiding them for touching the toys. We walked through the small store with admittedly only half-hearted attempts to keep our kids from playing with the toys that were set out perhaps being just a bit antagonistic because the owners were giving them the evil eye and stalking their every move. If you hate kids, don't sell toys, I would think. So after five minutes we shuffled our kids outside and vowed to never buy anything from them.
The market was completely empty, it's stands still closed except for the ones selling rotisserie chicken, fried everything, and spices. We walked around the old city and discovered at least three fountains. I've been to many cities in Europe, but Maastricht is one of the most charming I've been too. Perhaps it has to do with feeling that you are a part of history just by merely walking next to the city fortification that has stood to protect the settlement for 8 centuries.
Ezra loves very few things more than elevators. He didn't care too much about the wall, more about the glas elevator in front of it.
According to wikipedia Maastricht has an unbroken line of habitation that dates back 500 years before the Romans. That is so impressive. It has everything you would expect from a European city: cobble stoned narrow walk ways, ancient ruins, grand cathedrals, rows of houses joined one to another each outdoing their neighbor in architecture, cafes lining the grand places, and finally beautiful parks to relax and walk in. The Dutch seem to be especially fond of petting zoos, and farms for children. There has been one everywhere I've been to in the Netherlands so far. I felt very prepared when we encountered one without looking for it, having brought the crusts of the bread. I'm not sure why I get such a kick out of feeding ducks and deer, but I do.
We left tired and content, having found no playground, but having enjoyed what the city had to offer.
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