2012 in review

Here is our Christmas letters to our family and friends. It will serve as an update for my blog. 

Do you ever ask yourself when you get Christmas letters from your family or friends, if this is really the same family you know in real life? Or perhaps you wonder why everyone else's life seems to run so smoothly around the time Christmas letters are written, when your life resembles Norad on DEFCON 2? I know I ask myself that sometimes. In the last few years, I haven't even bothered to write a letter, simply because our challenges were so fast and frequent, that writing about them, would have taken us away from the tasks at hand. (But don't worry, this letter won't be depressing.) 

Sometimes we feel like tennis players on the court facing a ball gun machine, that has been turned to superspeed and we have to swing the racket or run for cover. Although we have certainly sustained some bruises from the baragge of ammunition flying at us, we hold our ground and are getting rather good at handling a racket. 

This year was a trouble-some, travel-some, and awe-some year. We learned much about ourselves, and are practicing gratitude for our crazy journey through life with three of our men having ADHD, and 1.5 autism. Rather than tell you all the medical diagnosis we either knew of or received this year, I have added up the letters of the combined diagnosis of our family. 

AAAAAAAAA CCC DDDDDDDDDDDD EEEEE G HH IIIIIII LLL M NNNN OOOOO RRR SSSSS TTTT U X Y

The person who emails me back with the funniest poem or sentence using those letters will receive a chocolate treat from Belgium. What can I say, I spend a lot of time schlepping everyone to the doctor, therapists, and psychologists. So much so that it became necessary for me to take a serious vacation from being a mother and wife just to replenish the well. And what better place to do that then with singers in Berlin. I attended a workshop that reunited me with some very dear long-time friends from back in the day in New York, and many wonderful new ones. Twelve days all to myself, just to sing. It was so much fun. I had given up on singing all together in light of the pressing need my family had for me, but to my delight I discovered that giving my voice a three year rest, made it come back full force. I am again enjoying working on repertoire, and who knows...I might even chance an audition or two. 

Now that you can be certain that this letter is in fact from a real-life family, who walks through the trenches, let me tell you some of the highs of this year. Where there is pain there is also joy, and we've had much of it this year, getting to visit good friends and family while exploring beautiful places.

Aaron has entered the final stages of his PhD and is now writing his thesis. With the help of Dr.Earnest from the Amen Clinic in Seattle, as well as a counselor at his work, he has been able to make great progress in managing the effects of depression and ADD. He taught several courses and published two papers. He is on track to graduate end of July this coming year.

Ezra is our precious weed. He grows mentally and also physically no matter how rough the circumstances. He is making progress in his own time. For the most part he likes going to school and has learned Dutch very quickly. We are very lucky and grateful to his special needs school who accommodates his need for silence and a very low distraction environment when working. He continues to challenge and amaze us. It is safe to say that he teaches us much more than we could ever teach him. His son-rise program experienced a lull after our dear Leonie left, but has picked up again with the addition of two wonderful team workers. 

Micah is our adorable clown. He just spreads love wherever he goes, showering us with hugs, kisses, and "I love you"'s. He is very sharp and has a thirst for knowledge, which stands a bit in contradiction to his conviction that he in fact DOES know everything, and should be put in charge. We lovingly call him our bossy midget. 

This year was a year of travel. Some of the places we visited:

Istanbul, London, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, France, Finland, Seattle WA, Auburn WA, Olympic Peninsula, Houston TX space center, and Austin TX. 

The most wonderful highlight was certainly attending the wedding of my brother in Switzerland. 

As for our plans for this coming year: finish Aaron's PHD, and then see where we want to live. We've narrowed it down to two continents Europe or America. Some of the options are for cities with high concentration of jobs for Aaron, Bay Area, CA, Seattle area WA, NY area, London, UK, Berlin, or Amsterdam area. But who knows where we will end up! 

We love you all, and wish you all a wonderful 2013. 

Our very first Pakjesavond and first snow

The first snow has fallen and the kids could not be more excited. We got to use their new snow discs, snow boots, and the snow could not have been more perfect for snow man making. Aaron and I split the fun equally. I took the boys sledding, and he built the snow family. Then a Santa Clause movie with home made Wassail. It was a perfect evening.



It is a lucky coincidence that Sinterklaas happened to give them snow discs for the Pakjesavond, which translates to packages evening.
On the evening of the 5th of December we got together to celebrate Sinterklaas. I had a CD with Sinterklaas songs that I played, and while the kids were singing along Aaron snuck out and knocked on the window. Micah was terrified, but Ezra quickly grasped that presents were waiting outside the door. They were so excited. I love this tradition. I think we will keep it up even if we don't live here at some point. With the Sinterklaas tradition we can keep the Santa Clause idea without it interfering with Christmas.

  The top present for Micah was the Vriendenboekje, a book in which all your friends stick their picture and write about their favorite things. Even before he had unwrapped it, he recognized what it must be and exclaimed: "Ah Vriendenboekje! FINALLY!" He had been asking for one for the last two weeks.

Trying out the snow discs in a dry run on the carpet. 

Sinterklaas left some cookies and chocolates in their shoes on the morning of December 5th. Yay. Happiness all around. Micah ate only cookies for breakfast. Apparently you are supposed to do this for the whole two weeks from the day Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands. I thought I'd scratch that and just do it on the 5th.

Sinterklaas in Best

I am one of those parents who swore that I would tell my kids the truth about Santa Clause, Sinterklaas, Samichlaus or whatever you choose to call him. That is, I wouldn't tell them about him at all. I would make sure they knew what is real. I didn't want them to associate Christmas with anything but Christ. And lest you think I'm just a nutty religious person, the tradition in Switzerland, Austria, and Germany that I grew up with is the one that the Christkindl (Christ child) brings the presents. So while I loved the idea of Santa Clause, he had not much to do with my upbringing. 

Anyway, all my efforts failed. Ezra found out about Santa Clause through books and movies, and in school here they make a very big deal about Sinterklaas, who comes on a steamboat from Spain, with his black servants who hand out cookies and candy. They go through an elaborate charade here with the news channels reporting sightings and tracking his journey. He visits every city in the Netherlands. Yesterday was the Sinterklaas parade here, and it happened to pass right by our house. Ezra asked me if he could believe that Santa Clause brought him presents on Christmas, and that Sinterklaas comes to bring him gifts. I told him "That isn't what actually happens Ezra, but if you want to believe and pretend, that is fine with me." Ezra and Micah now happily believe in Sinterklaas, and I know I told them the truth. Everyone's happy. 

So yesterday night the kids put their shoes outside of the front door, and "Sinterklaas" left them a bag of goodies in their shoes. It was very cute to see their excitement and wonder in their eyes. 

Progress with food intolerances

Today I took Ezra to the biofeedback test to check what his food intolerances look like. I'm cautiously optimistic about the result. After several years of being the Nazi diet mom, who probably gave her kid food paranoia and an eating disorder going from gluten free to casein free, to gluten and casein free, then grain free, nut free, egg free, to nutritarian...his system seems to be doing better and is recovering. We have his intolerances down to a very few items on the list. Egg white is still a problem, but I'm thinking that is an actual allergy, as he even tested allergic to it with the allergist years ago, and it has shown up consistently as an irritant. And dairy (specifically cream) is also on the list, but after reading The China Study, Eat to Live, and watching movies like Forks over Knives and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, I'm pretty convinced that dairy isn't good for anyone and should be avoided anyway (and if you're crying right now "WHAT??? But it's good for you, and you need the calcium" then I suggest you ditch the milk and eat green leafy veggies for your calcium, while reading The China Study).

This news doesn't change much in terms of what we'll be eating however. I'm not going to go out and start bombarding Ezra with a bunch of gluten and food packed full of chemical crap. And we will still steer clear from all additives, food colorings, preservatives, refined sugar, and flour.

Still, perhaps I will now get to start making our own sour dough bread. That would be great.

Expectations - tools of misery or joy!

I've learned a thing or two about expectation management from the Dutch weather, and from having an autistic child (or children in general). 

Today was a lovely fall day. Most of the day we had lovely sunshine, and one little rain storm that lasted around 20 minutes. For the first three years of living in the Netherlands I regarded this country mainly as purgatory, simply because I would base my moods on what the weather was like. As someone with S.A.D. I have reasonable even plausible grounds to do such a thing. Every day I would check the weather on www.weer.nl where you can see a weekly overview of what the weather will be like and most of the time it would say cloudy or rainy, and in fact it was just that. So when it was sunny I would feel like I was in paradise and when it was cloudy....I would be angry/annoyed/depressed.

Finally over this summer, after three solid years of being miserable and upset about the lousy climate, I decided to no longer base my moods on what the weather was going to be like. Yes, I realize I'm a slow learner, and am stubbornly holding fast to my dream of climate domination, and congratulations to you who are smart enough to know you can't control the weather. So I stopped my OWCD (obsessive weather checking disorder), and decided that I would enjoy the day regardless of the weather. I adjusted my expectations from wanting to see the sun every day, to  realizing that I live in a place where I just might not get to see the sun at all from September to end of April. Ironically after I adjusted that we had almost no cloudy or rainy days at all for two months. It has been mostly sunny, but even when it starts out rainy, and overcast, and the sun breaks through for just a moment, I rejoice, and say "Ha, I can feel sunshine." But even if it doesn't break through I'm fine, because I expected as much. 

Now I'm working on applying the same principle to my family. In theory it should be simple, right? Today however, I did a really supreme job of being miserable thanks to the expectations I set. 

I'll give you an overview of my mental expectations and let you guess how they gave me plenty of opportunity to be miserable. 

1. I will be able to sleep in a little.               

2. The kids will play nicely together or alone and occupy themselves. 

Reality Check: Ezra has autism, seeks stimulation and structure, so unless activities are provided he will just make Micah scream, and use him like a light-up toy.

3. We'll get a lot of stuff done today. 

Couldn't find recycling pass, and had to keep the kids occupied all day.

4. We'll go do something fun as a family. 

Nope, Aaron developed a severe stomach flu and lay on the couch all day. Almost took him to the hospital he was in so much pain. 

5. I can finally finish my emergency backpacks. 

Nope, had to take Ezra shopping with me, which ended up in him running through the aisles screaming for me, when he couldn't find me. 

6. I am going to get time to practice. 

Ha!

7. I can let the kids play Wii fit and it will be good for their development of balance. 

Got frustrated when the kids didn't get how to do it. 

8. When we sit down to eat, the kids will eat the food with good manners. 

Nope. Still using their hands, throwing food on the floor, arguing and whining about eating the vegetables, Ezra does his burping ism, Micah copies him. 

9. When the kids are fighting they will stop themselves and remember the 500 trillion times I told them to either share and take turns, or walk away and find something else to do. 

LOL. 

and the best one yet. 

10. My kids will act like reasonable grown ups. 

These are really fabulous examples of how I set myself up for trouble. I don't want to spend another day expecting something from my kids. I think I'm much better off expecting absolutely nothing from them, and from anyone frankly, because the whole world and all of humanity will be one endless string of positive surprises. I will no longer be dependent on anyone or anything to act a certain way for me to be happy. 

Think about the possibilities!

I expect the president I vote for to fix the economy single handedly....or no one can fix the economy, not even the president, but I can make sure I'm self-reliant. 

I expect my spouse to treat me a certain way....or no matter how my spouse treats me, I will be loving and kind.

I expect my children to behave...or it doesn't matter how my children behave, I will love them forever. 

I expect to sing every note perfectly...or I'll probably screw up most of the music. 

I expect the conductor to consider the fact I need to breathe....the conductor will take everything as slow as Harnoncourt and allow me no time to breathe.

I don't think that having low expectations is being negative as long as you add on "I will be happy anyway." If you add on "All is woe, nothing good will ever happen, so I might as well be miserable" coupled with a good ol' mental self-punishment by all means. That's called the unhappiness program. "It works every time, without exception." (Jim Cox)
I for one am going to use the coming days to practice having low expectations. I just tend to forget about those on Saturdays, where I kind of just want a day off.  

More Helsinki pictures

More Finland pictures!

 Seurasaari island and open air museum

It was a little bit windy and Micah got cold. Ezra took this picture after some coaching. He did a great job.

The kids loved exploring the houses.

I get the funniest faces when I tell Ezra to just relax.

Life just doesn't get much better. Sun, rocks, beach, ocean.

And then there is telling Micah to be relaxed.

We took books along and when we needed a break from hiking, we found a lovely spot to just sit and read. As I said: HEAVEN!

The boys wanted to pose at every tree. 

This is what Ezra does when I say look at me!

And this is what he does when I point to the iPod and my eyes. 

We had a lot of fun throwing grapes to seagulls up on this big rock. They would perform cool acrobatics to get to the rolling grapes.

More Helsinki Sites

Temppeliaukion Church

The magnificent Rock Church in Helsinki. The acoustics from the balcony are fantastic. A pianist was playing while we were there.

Senate Square

This is actually not the Senate but the cathedral. The outside is very elegant, and the inside is completely devoid of fluff. It is simple and elegant with a beautiful organ.

Kauppatori Market

It is a beautiful market with a lot of hand made jewelry and crafts, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. It is right at the harbor. 

To their delight they got the stuffed animals they wanted from the Market.

In summer there is an abundance of berries, snap peas, and mushrooms to be had at the market. They are not cheap though, be warned. 

Very iffy sausages and potatoes from the Market.

Kaivopuisto Park

After church on sunday at the park.

Back to Suomenlinna

Pilahjassaari

Pilahjasaari is just a 15 minute boatride from Helsinki. It was almost completely deserted when we were there. There were at least two playgrounds and two very nice beaches, but head South to the rock beach. It was beautiful.

 Museum of Natural History