October 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Yes, it’s been a while...

After a wonderful, sun-soaked trip to California, culminating in the famous Cousin Camp extravaganza, we re-entered Amsterdam and promptly began plumbing the depths. Sometimes a bit too literally.
We have been working on a fairly major renovation project, the key elements of which involve building a new kitchen and claiming a bathroom out of what used to be a hallway. For years we had been showering in a 3’ x 3’ converted broom closet.
The heavy construction elements of the project were to have been completed while we were gone.
Alas, it was not to be. You will all be shocked and dismayed to hear the builders ran into some unexpected problems and got behind schedule.
Yes, it’s true, a renovation project that took too long and ran over budget. How bizarre...

(here's a photo of our construction staff, which explains a lot).

So with no fire or water at our own house, and pretty much everything covered in plastic sheets and dust, we sought asylum at a neighbor’s place. They were on vacation convieniently _ or so it seemed.
The day after we arrived, the neighbor’s main drain pipe became clogged, which led to an acute overflow of sewage into their basement. And nobody to solve that problem but the incidental residents, aka the Sterling family.

I guess that was the point of maximum tension.

Since then we’ve gradually been digging our way out.

Oma and Opa (Riky and Lambert) chipped in very significantly by taking care of the kids for 10 straight days. They may be sainted.


(from a great series of photos by Lambert)


The project is *still* not completed due to certain people named Hinke E. van Gils who shall remain anonymous being unable to decide on a counter for the kitchen. That’s keeping some other finishing touches on hold as well. Anyhow a fair amount of our kitchen is still in boxes but it’s livable as is and we love having a real, if small, bathroom.



Zeph and Zola are back in kindergarten and creche and both doing well. A few words on each.
Zephyr managed to break one of his front teeth on a play structure last week. After several attempts to glue it back together, the dentist decided it had to come out.
This is a baby tooth, but we’ll have to wait a couple of years for the real one to come in. I find the Alfred E. Newman look suits him fairly well, but I’ll let you guys make up your own mind from the picture.
(this was taken the morning it was pulled)
My parental heart broke when he came back pressing gauze on his mouth. I asked him how it went. He looked at me and said, “dad, I’d rather not talk about it.”
So brave.
I heard from Hinke later that the novocaine didn’t work initially, so he had a bad time when the dentist started pulling. Then they took a break and tried again.
Now this report is second-hand from Hinke so she’ll have to vouch for the accuracy or perhaps I misunderstood.
But apparently Zeppo told the dentist that he was doing it wrong, that he needed to twist as he pulled. Perhaps he’s seen the situation before in cartoons? At any rate Hinke says the dentist let him take over the pulling and he got it out himself.
Seems hard to believe but that’s the story.

The tooth fairy left a euro and a nice note saying how surprised she was to get Zephyr’s first tooth, since it wasn’t scheduled to come out until 2012. She plans to display it in her trophy case near Babar’s first tusk.


Zola’s character is really coming out now, and what can I say? In addition to our facial resemblance, she’s kind of reminding me of me in other ways.
She’s very loud & opinionated & into everything. If she’s told “no” about something, she tends to pause and do it anyway. Or she says “NOU” (loosely translated “aw!”) in such a disappointed way.
She is very adept at worming herself wherever she wants to be _ into any unfilled lap, out of any dinner chair, on top of any delicate lego operation or other moment being shared by Zeph and me without her involvement.



Whereas Zeph was more likely to cross a boundary and get punished, she’s much more adept at testing, testing, constantly testing the limits of rules and patience. Mine, Hinke’s, and especially Zephyr’s. In confrontations with him, he is inevitably the one who loses his cool, and she walks away laughing (or crying).
I’ve also seen her, when “crossed” in some way by other children, even older children she doesn’t know, lash out verbally or physically. She’s not easily intimidated, though she can be shy when I’m talking with other adults and she’s brought into the spotlight.
Interestingly, she’s not speaking much English, far less than Zeph did at this age, I think. I also think her Dutch is more advanced for the same age, which kind of makes sense.
She does seem to understand English perfectly, she just responds in Dutch.
She’s generally a very chipper child, which is endearing at most times, but annoying before 7 a.m.
My two favorite expressions of hers, both Dutch:
"Snap je dat?" ("Dja get it?) with Amsterdam/Bronx accent.
"Wat is dat voor moois?" (literally "what kind of a pretty thing is that?") used for absolutely anything you are holding that she either hasn't seen before, or just plain wants.

Now about me.

Work has been demanding a lot more of my time than AP is paying for, but it’s been tough for me to not "step up" when there are things that need doing and no other staff to take care of them. In part that’s due to a misplaced sense of loyalty, but mostly it’s because I’m reluctant to get fired at the moment.

It rained for the entire month of September. I got sick a couple of times. Feeling much better now.

That’s my summary of life at the present moment. I hope you all are well.

Love,

Toby

November 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

The Pox! The Chicken Pox!

A rite of passage that I remember myself, and ye of the older generation will as well. But apparently all American kids are spared nowadays thanks to a vaccine.

Not so in Holland.

Zephyr was the first young soldier to fall. He was green around the gills for a couple of days, no appetite, running a fever, throwing up at night, etc. Hinke and I had just been having a conversation about how maybe he's one of those kids that's just perennially sickly. Then, over the course of a couple of hours, he broke out in a beautiful, unmistakable dappled rash.




His recovery was almost instant from there, and (here's Dutch for you) all the parents at our nursery school just said he should come to school and they weren't worried about their kids catching it.

Now, I had heard here and there that the second child in the same family to catch Chicken Pox usually has a worse case, but I found that confusing. I mean, either you get infected by a virus or you don't, right? But I knew there probably must be some truth to it, or it never would have found its way onto the parental information sheets, not in this era, when every medical issue related to children is hyper-sensitive and usually politicized in bizarre ways.

But nobody I asked _ and no where on the Internet could I find _ any explanation of why a second child would suffer more.

As a parent, you can always find out what "they" want you to know about any given medical issue, but good luck trying to find out why. So you have your choice between blindly accepting what the health authorities decree, or listening to hysterical, anti-science know-nothings (See also: Vaccination debate; or Tamiflu for kids with Swine Flu, yes or no?).

Anyhow, I eventually used AP access to various magazine databases to find a medical study on Chicken Pox outbreaks in India and Africa. It found that, indeed, the longer and more intense a child's exposure to the virus is, the worse the case generally is. Their hypothesis was that heavy exposure leads to a greater percentage of nerve cells being invaded during the incubation phase.

So the first kid is exposed briefly on the playground, but his/her siblings then breath in large amounts as they sleep in the same room, take baths together, etc.

Anyhow, 2.5 weeks after Zephyr's rash, Zola finally broke out, and woah baby, this was another disease entirely.

In contrast with Zeph, Zola is a hardy creature, as evidenced by her stoicism during her leg-infection episode. She is rarely sick or even out of sorts. And in fact, she didn't throw up or run much of a fever with the Pox. However, there was no part of her body left unaffected by the sores, including unfortunate areas such as the inside of her mouth and _ well, let your imagination run wild.

At the peak of her distress, she howled through one entire night without stopping, leading to (for me) the first night since _ well, since Zephyr's birth, actually, that I got less than one full hour of sleep.



I took the above photo just before she got sick, thinking I wanted to be able to remember her as she was. That turned out to be a smart move, since she's also had an eventful haircut from Hinke and _ well, let's just say she's in something of an awkward phase at the moment, appearance-wise.

The other big news of course is that I have received my Dutch citizenship. It was a long, hard road, but it had a happy ending.
You may recall that I got a Dutch passport once before, but had it revoked again when I refused to renounce my U.S. citizenship.
This time I applied as Hinke's husband, jumped through all the hoops, and eventually was approved. It cost me around $1100 (again) but just days after I finished, they announced that the annual immigrant visa fees are being increased (again) to $750 from $250 (from $35 when I arrived in Oct. 1998).
So I look at it as an investment that will pay for itself.

This time, in order to win final approval, I had to go to a ceremony in which I swore allegiance to the Dutch state.
This procedure has been introduced as a byproduct of the Netherlands' ongoing crackdown on Muslim immigrants, if anybody is wondering.
Anyhow, I had to do it if I wanted the passport, so I figured I might as well make the best of it, and got dressed up for the occassion.

I also threw a small party with traditional Dutch snacks at a nearby pub.



I got a lot of good presents: Dutch flags, shoes, pickled herring, jenever (gin), a family heirloom commemorative coin of the queen and queen mother. But maybe the best was a 5 kilogram (that's 11 pounds but I've gone metric now) block of fine cheese.

And then my Dutch friends finally told me all the secret truths of Dutchness, which, I'm sad to say, I cannot reveal.

But what with this overdose of Oranje, I missed being home during Halloween.


(Papa Tobe's Jack o Lantern creations _ they are something of a draw around here since kids don't celebrate Halloween).

And I'll miss all you Americans friends and family at Thanksgiving and the holidays.

Hope all is well with you,

Love,

Toby and the Amsterlings

Oh, here's a typical dinner at our house:



Okay, it's plastic food aboard a reconstructed Dutch schooner

September 2009

Dear Friends and Family,

It's a real shame there's no way to share the "Joy of Zola" with my family in the U.S.

She's in an extremely fun phase right now, with a delightful babble and a sunny disposition.

Some of the things she does that I hope I never forget:

-When she sees an animal, she squeaks, squeals and tries to jump out of my arms to go pet it. As she approaches any beast, she starts lifting up her shirt. Lifting up her shirt? Yes, it turns out that for the connesieur, bare skin is THE way to experience the softness of animal fur.

-When she gets angry with me (I never have any idea exactly what it is I've done wrong) she tilts her head forward and glares up at me, then approaches with one hand raised. The 'haymaker' comes down, and she backs up a step or two. Then repeat until the storm blows over...

-She thinks nothing of demanding that she be picked up and remain on your arm for a solid 20 minutes in the morning (or whenever). She's such good company that it's hard to say no. Plus if you do say no, she screams and cries and moans and bitches for ... as long as it takes. She's very stubborn. She gets that from her mother.

-She takes deep pleasure in making fart noises on my neck.

-She screams with annoyance when anyone tries to help her put on her boots. Yet, she can't put on her boots by herself.

-To her, having fun _ say during a ride on someone's shoulders _ is only truly fun when one is SEEN to be having fun.

She spent today with Oma and Opa (Riky & Lambert) and I can just hear her demanding "Worst, worst" ("sausage, sausage"), her favorite treat from their boutique butcher.



She's speaking probably more than Zeph did at her age, though possibly even more skewed toward Dutch than he was in the beginning. My fault.

Going out to the store with her (or as Lambert recently found out, the train) is best done when one doesn't mind being a bit social. That's because she's very very vocal about the people around her and the things she's seeing.

Incidentally: this reminds me of the time that Zephyr stared at an obese person in line at a grocery store for a long while before asking loudly "what IS that?" I could have died.

Zephyr: Ah, Zephyr. It seems like he's been three years old forever.



I'm a bit worried at his lack of interest in _ most things. Food, for instance. And sports. He turned down a new bicycle recently. Nothing wrong with the old one, apparently.

At the same time, he does like catching insects and watching TV, especially the latter.

His Tintin phase has finally passed, praise the lord.

At the same time, he's mastered many small but significant skills in recent months. He's been out of diapers since before Cousin Camp & is now putting on his own clothes, taking showers by himself, and fixing some of his own snacks & breakfast.



Hinke is happy with the kids, but dissatisfied with other aspects of her life, such as her job. But not enough to (so far) make any changes, so take that for what it's worth.

For my part, I am very satisfied with life. My work with AP seems less burdensome at half time (which of course ends up being about 3/4 time). With the extra hours, I've taken on more of the childcare and house-cleaning duties, which are satisfying in different ways (enjoying the kids, lessening the load on Hinke).

And of course there's the book. I guess it's time to update you all candidly about how things are going.

Well, not great but could definitely be worse.

I estimate that, after everything, I've had about 1 day a week for the book, on average (trying to be realistic here). When I do get time to work on it, I'm enjoying doing so very much. It's challenging, and interesting. Now if I only had a rough draft.

In 9 months (say, 40 days of work), I've written about 30 pages, not one of which is completely polished. Of course, I've also figured out the backbone of the story, and my working knowledge of Greek history is back in shape. That's not to be underestimated _ though I always want to read more more more (Plato's dialogues, the three tragedians and Aristophanes, secondary sources, etc.).

One big surprise has been that our finances haven't fallen apart as a result of me working less _ we're 'breaking even' each month, which is great as far as I'm concerned. I definitely feel blessed with so many people out of work, especially in the U.S.

So for now I'm still pushing ahead, no changes.

And I think I would be remiss if I didn't mention that all in all the past couple of months have been some of the best I can remember.



The one real downer is the distance between me and, well, most of you. Even in Amsterdam, I'm having trouble keeping up with (what's left of) my core crew.

Apologies to the several people whose birthdays I missed recently (jessikah, Will and probably others). Next year better.

Love,

Toby

Next: Winter approacheth

Up to June 2009

Hi all.

We'll be in California from June 20 to July 10, with Cousin Camp right in the middle of that period. Looking forward to seeing Californians then.

I realize now that in the heat of battle I forgot to post my (draft) March letter. Such is parenthood.

I'll put it up at the same time with this one with a few random photos of my parents' April visit, for the historical record.

Funny enough, working half-time hasn't made life any easier or less busy. However, I have to say the quality is improving. So is the sleep, with Zola now definitely holding out for 6:30 a.m. on most days.




Zola started walking in April. The bad reaction she had to a vaccine really set her back ; we found out at her most recent weigh-in that she's scarcely grown since January (when she got sick), and is falling behind on the charts they use to measure such things. Anyhow, speaking as a parent, I'm confident that she's gotten over it now and has resumed thriving. Sadly it looks like she may have some permanent scar tissue in her thigh as a result of all this; time will tell.




Her first clearly defined word will go into the record books as "Aapie," that is, "Aapje," that is, Dutch for "Monkey." Her father's daughter. She imitates lots of sounds, and the Dutch is even more dominant with her than it was with Zeph at the start.

In appearance, she's her father's daughter, no question about it, and that's the remark I get *all the time* on the street. We should have named her Toby Jr.






Sorry sweetie, you can't choose your parents.

Amsterdam crowd: someone also told me in the sandbox this weekend that she looked "small but fast." I had to laugh...


Zephyr is doing great; I'm enjoying him more and more all the time. His imagination is really taking off; he is obsessed with "boy" things such as rockets, Lightning McQueen, Buzz Lightyear, guns, sticks, driving, tent-building ... you name it. Not sports or dinosaurs though, so far.






One thing that caught me by surprise was that I showed him a Tintin comic and he became instantly addicted, asking for nothing else at bedtime. After a while I realized he wasn't really following the plot at all, he just likes the violent parts (pratfalls, chases, etc.). And Snowy the dog.

At age 3.5, he is finally entering his terrible twos, with full scale nuclear meltdowns on at a rate of one every other day or so. So, anyone at Cousin Camp will undoubtedly get to experience it in person.

Hinke is starting to think about looking for a new job, with more hours which _ if she gets a decent-paying job _ would definitely let me cut back even further at AP (and pick up even more with the kids; they are getting easier for one person to take care of now that Zola's on her feet). One problem: Hinke has only vague ideas about what she might want to do. Maybe some soul searching during the "vacation."





As far as me, I'm struggling mightily with my book. It's fun and frustrating at the same time. Even though I'm working half-time, I'm having trouble finding solid blocks of time to put into it, and having trouble working efficiently when I do have the opportunity. Still, it's satisfying just to be attempting it.

Love to all,

Toby & Co.

March 2009

So yesterday, April 5, Zola took her first unaided step.

To me this is an indication of how much her leg ailment set her back _ she was standing unaided before Christmas. Anyhow, it's been quite a good time of life for us all lately.
I think the parents feel overwhelmed at times, but the big picture is all of us are doing pretty well in our own ways.

From youngest to oldest:

Zola is a big imitator, so she really is parroting words back quite a bit, even though she's not saying any. I can't remember but I'm pretty sure Zeph was earlier with his first words. Zola does say a convincing "Uh-oh!" when she drops something. And she pays close attention to us when we're in a 'language teaching' moment, like pointing to papa or mama (she says both, but not uniformly correctly).

I was on the phone the other day getting harrangued by a bigwig in the AP who is a major league asshole (Anthony: Nick Tatro) with Zo-zo on one arm.
Gradually it became impossible for him to ignore her babbling away, one hand on her ear. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at that.

Anyhow. She's doin fine.



Zeph is now among the oldest at his nursery school _ in fact I'm a bit worried that he will be the oldest, by a long shot, for the final 9 months or so before he turns four. I really would like to see him interacting more with other kids, but I have to face it that some play-by-himselfedness is inherent in the boy.

That said, he's getting more interesting all the time, very fun to talk with him now (there's no language barrier at all anymore, Yankees) and it's fun to hear him bring up expressions at random moments: "Daddy, daddy, I saw a big old honkin spider."

Hinke relates an episode at his dance "class" (this is movement session for kids) where they were supposed to act like dogs.
The teacher asked him whether he was being a dog, and he replies, "no, a dog has five legs."
"Oh?" Asks the teacher. And how many legs do you have? "Twenty five."

I've backed off on trying to teach him numbers for a while.

Yesterday, before Zola's big step, we were barbequing and Zephyr suddenly calls uncle Marten what can only be described as a made up word. "You're a kookla" he says, without menace. "And Zola's a gooble." Or words to that effect.

Today we asked him to repeat what he said, but this time he called Marten a 'Kaka', which demonstrates the potential downside of his growing exposure to kids on the square. I'm going to warn everyone in advance, Dutch people often use English curse words in the way SOME Americans might say "merde" ... so I can't prevent that. Fortunately the pronounciation is way off...

(Dutchies: he also said 'gatver de gatver' the other day while I was changing his diapers. I can't be blamed for teaching him that! On the other hand, I couldn't help thinking he stole my line, given that I was the one doing the wiping).

He is progressing steadily toward being potty trained, by the way. I don't know if it's Kosher parenting, but a system of pure candy bribes has worked well for us so far. Hope we're not courting disaster with that.

Next, Hinke. She's taking on a lot of the bookkeeping for our house. I won't bore you with the details, but sufficeit to say that landlording 5 appartments is a bigger time-sucker than you might think. We've also been working on back-taxes and on trying to accomodate Anthony's on-again, off again plans to return from Jakarta to the Netherlands and live in the top floors _ which would require both renovations and evictions.



There's also a massive backlist of things that we need to do to get our appartment on the ground floor fixed up and ergonomic for the growing Sterling brood _ we generally make less progress on those adjustments than we'd like, but now and again we make a little headway.
Her work remains a 'job job' , but I think it's safe to say she appreciates the time away from house and kids.

I've been working on my book, yes. Not nearly as much as you might think _ I'm supposed to have 20 hours a week to do it, in practice it's been less than that. The scale of the project and the speed of my progress, well, both are disappointing so far, that's clear.
At the same time, the changes in my lifestyle and mental focus have been a very pleasant and needed change, so I'm hopeful that it'll get better soon.
I toyed with the idea of posting some of the writing on my blog (which is temporarily in suspended animation so I can focus on the book), but for the time being I've decided against it.
I want to have the flexibility to _ how do I describe this _ flip around scenes and leave paragraphs half written along the way, without any pressure of judgment from readers.

In a way that's very uncharacteristic for me, I have the "big picture" of the plot and progression already worked out, so what I'm doing is trying to fill in the details and tell the story in a way that maintains 'dramatic' tension along the way. Well, that's the goal. Pretty different to anything I've tried to do before and I guess it's too early for me to give any appraisal of how well it will go.

Anyhow, a great challence and one benefit of the time spent so far is that a lot of what I learned in school is coming back to me, sometimes even with much clearer vision, since I'm more motivated to learn now, I think.

On more mundane notes, we feel we're doing a pretty good job of keeping our costs down while my great experiment progresses, and I have made some investments in technology that I'm happy about _ the purchase of a "net book" laptop, and a system of playing films from a hard-drive on my television.

We're planning our trip out West for June 20-July 11th, and reservations are fillling up fast. Hope to see many of you during Cousin Camp.

That's that. Hope you all are well.

Love

Toby

Up to January 2009

(Count 'em!)

Dear All,

It's been three huge months since our last update.

Actually I wrote an update about a month and a half ago; but I can't find it, and I don't think it would help to dump it on y'all now anyway. I have published the photos intended to go with it (below) because hey, that's easy.

The photos that accompany this note were all taken in the past week.

I don't think I'll even try to chart all the changes the kids have gone through in the past quarter year. It's been amazing, so exciting and so much fun.

The big news is that Zola turned one year old last Wednesday. She's doing great _ at least, that's the big picture.



Sadly, we had to cancel her birthday party because she's got an odd ailment at the moment: her thigh abruptly developed a lump on it the size of a grapefruit after a vaccination shot almost two weeks ago. She's pretty distressed, but Tylenol helps.

(but she still got cake!)

I won't give further details because I just think it's too depressing to rail about sicknesses. My last word on that topic: the whole house was down with the flu for about two weeks in January, which kind of took the heart out of us.

Apart from that it's just been busy! So busy that I've been re-appraising how much time I can spend on various things like blogs, and, yeah, family letters.

Tonight is a good example: I've got to get this written and turn it in soon or suffer the consequences tomorrow.

With babysitting help from Hinke's parents we managed to re-arrange the house to create some small room-lettes for the kids. The new "flow" of the house is much better and we're doing a hair better at keeping things clean.

If anybody was wondering whether I followed through on the various ideas outlined in my previous letter: well, yes.

I went to half-time with the AP, which is pretty daring in these troubled economic times. I also quit the board of the foreign press association, and have more or less stopped updating my blog. I really should leave a note explaining things to my readers there _ I was getting pretty good traffic by the time I tapered off last year.

(A Portrait of the Author)

I've started work on my book, with mixed results so far. Lots of ideas about the structure & content, but what I've written feels a little flat. More on that next time.

Hinke is starting to get a little involved in her brother's massive project. If y'all don't know about the project _ it's kind of hard to explain: saving the world, somewhat along the lines of Kiva.org. They're going full speed ahead and I will definitely send you the link to their website once it's operational later this year.

(cold weather).

Zeph! The young man is getting more fun and full of surprises all the time. He interrupted my first attempt at writing of this letter (late Sunday evening), curious to know what I was doing. He insisted that I include the fact that he baked a cake for Zola's birthday.

As far as I know, that's a total fabrication.

Tonight he was berating whoever it was who stole my bike about 4 months back, an event he vividly remembers ("The dirty rats"). He refers to the villain as the "purple thief", a reference whose significance eludes me & Hinke.

He's addicted to TV, and so far his major interests include swords and fire engine sirens, but not balls or dinosaurs (okay, a little bit dinosaurs).

Apologies that I haven't sent thank-yous to anybody from Christmas yet. I guess the comments above about being short on time _ blah blah blah it's so boring but it's true _ will have to serve as explanation for now.

I love you all and hope everybody is well!

Love,

Toby

October and November 2008

(Hinke's Birthday)
(Klaartje and Anna)
(Riky and Zola)
(Zephyr and Fern)