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)

Half of August and all of September 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

"Look out! Here comes Zephyr."

-Zephyr, age 2.5

There's lots going on in the Amsterling household, but let's start below 1/2 meters (yard) and work our way up.

Two months is an eternity in kid time. The changes are most dramatic in Zola. She's now fully crawling, pulling up and furniture surfing _ I'm pretty sure she's hitting all her developmental milestones earlier than Zephyr did. Admittedly he was in a cast for part of the time, but still.



She continues to be the spitting image of her father, poor thing. Not because of that, I find myself enjoying her babyhood much more than I did Zephyr's. Her parents are more relaxed, so probably that helps her be the same. She's a pleasure to have around: healthy, laughs a lot, plays well, an easy eater, an easy sleeper, never (knock on wood) had diaper rash problems, etc. A jolly chubby Gerber (Dutch: Olvarit) baby.



Perhaps it's my imagination, but lately I see her grappling with the recognition that I exist. Hinke, obviously, is Zola's number one favorite. The baby is always craning her neck to see what she-of-the-red-hair, bearer-of-milk is doing. Zephyr is also a subject of great interest to Zola, especially when he is holding a toy or making loud noises (i.e., often). But as for me... I can just hear her thinking: "What's the point of that guy, anyway?
"He seems to be on our team. Hmm. Sometimes he's handy for moving me about and giving me bottles. Note to self: must research his function and role further."

Zephyr is getting more complicated, more interesting, and, sigh, acting his age. In addition to a general rebellious temperament, he can flare into bouts of anger and misery pretty quick when he doesn't get his way. More interestingly, I've witnessed him telling a few lies _ untruths, really. He is the worst possible source of information about, for instance, who was in attendance at nursery school on any given day. Anyone who was there, he usually doesn't mention. Anyone who wasn't there _ including pretty much anyone he has met or heard of in his life, may pop up. So: Jack Jack is at school sometimes, and so is Sascha, but the teacher never is. I can't decide if he's playing a game with me or what.





He's also taken to "hiding," which he does with no warning. He is surprisingly good at keeping quiet, given that the other 99 percent of the time he is either yelling or pounding something. Needless to say the abrupt disappearance of a child is a good way of inducing panic in a parent _ which may in fact be the motivation.

Here's just a couple of random things that jumped out of his mouth:

Q: Where did you find those blackberries, Zeph?
A: On branches.

and

Q: Wow, that new shirt is pretty cool Zephyr. Where did you get it?
A: The hamper.

"Wake up, spiders!" (shouted frequently at drainpipes. Because of the tale of the Itsy-Bitsy spider).



Many fellow parents have asked us _ sometimes with what sounds oddly like a note of hopefulness in their voices _ whether Zephyr has gotten jealous of Zola yet.

Well, to dwell on the negative, after a period of model behavior, he's becoming gradually more territorial. He makes a point of bossing her around and taking away almost anything she happens to be playing with. When he's in a hyper mode, and misbehaving, he is (intentionally) reckless in ways that are likely to hurt her...yet that preserve 'plausible deniability' for him. So, jumping on the bed right next to her while she's lying down, swinging things on strings around while in her general area, running right past her while she's trying to stand, etc.



Zola = oblivious to all this.

When she gets hurt, he makes a point of kissing her. If there's anybody watching.

I'm feeling glad, given all the turmoil in the U.S., that I didn't rush the family back to California this summer. My latest plan _ no laughing please _ is to spend the next year (or so) writing my novel. It's going to be historical fiction, based on the life of Alcibiades. Athenian history. The closest comparison with my idea that some of you might be familiar with would be "I, Claudius." This is an idea that I've been toying with since college graduation, so I'm really going to give it a try.

Yes, I'm serious. No, I don't have a publisher. Failure is an option. If it doesn't work, I'm prepared to bury this dream with an easy heart and move on with my life. But if I feel good about how things are going part way in, I will accelerate work and start looking for an agent. We'll see how things are going in a few months.

With an eye to this, I'm doing several things:
-Curtailing my "blog" dramatically
-Quitting as secretary of the Dutch "Foreign Press Association"
-And looking to move to a part-time job. More news on that as it comes in.

***



And since we were going vertically through the family: Hinke is fine too. She's settling into the rhythym of her job and fantasizing often and loudly about renovating parts of our house. A can of worms, it seems to me, but the gaping crack in our bathroom wall leaves me in a weak negotiating position.



Love,

Toby and crew



Next: Chapter One

July and Half of August 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

The recent past was dominated by our epic voyage to California.

I could spend some time explaining who's who to those of you who don't know the intricacies of my family, but suffice it to say there were at least 6 different households represented at the "camp" (my parents' house) and 8 people there under 1.5 meters tall (Dutchies: not including me, ha,ha.).



Cousin Camp was amazing. We laughed, we cried, we bumped our foreheads. It was very important for Zephyr to get some exposure to pure English, and he's been speaking a little more of it to me since we got back. "No way, Jose" and "I'm making a racket" have become staples in his patois.

It was also quite a trip for Zola, who was stunningly well-behaved. She's gone through a dramatic number of changes in the past month: started grabbing stuff, tasting stuff, first tooth, second tooth, eating solids, and now even crawling a bit if you could call it that. She raises her butt in the air and then smooshes her face (somewhat painfully by appearances) along the floor. All she needs is a little more upper arm strength and she'll be fully mobile.

I've uploaded a few more photos of cousin camp to Picasa. I'm trying very hard to limit the number of pictures I produce, but if parents are interested in more of their brood I have about a bajillion outtakes. Admittedly a lot of Zeph, Anna and Jack Jack compared to everybody else.

Lambert, my father in law, got a few key people I missed, though. I recommend this album he's put up on Picasa for the photo junkies. Although it's AmSterling-centric, there are some nice shots of cousin camp, plus the old house on La Para, and a side trip to Big Basin with Rachel. Plus many waterfowl in Pajaro. Anyhow, Picasa makes it easy to skim though and see what grabs your interest.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see some old friends who I would have liked to hook up with (Jason Gray & family) and at least one other person that got in touch out of the blue (Jason Slater, who plays in a thrash metal band). I think he might have seen me on Facebook...

I didn't apply for any jobs or do any interviews while I was out there, if anybody was wondering. No time. At least my cousin Lisa (who has connections in the biz) gave me a few job-hunting tips...cousin camp isn't just for the rug-rats, you know.

I thought it was pretty stimulating to see other parenting styles up close and personal. Especially American parenting styles, for a change. And of course the kids are a rogue's gallery, a Doestoevski novel, a living study in nature vs. nurture ... pick your comparison, but in sum its fun to see them all thriving and being their individual little selves.

After cousin camp we went to a condo we rented on the beach at Pajaro Dunes, where we saw seals on the first day, then dolphins on the second, then a gray whale (!) on the third, breaching (!!)

Never have seen anything like that before.

(and the kids got to watch "The Cat in The Hat" movie.)

Then it was a long long flight back to Amsterdam, where we were greeted by a dismal cold rain. Zephyr hailed it like an old friend, and dashed gleefully outside to stand in a downpour. You can take the boy out of Holland, but you can't take the Holland out of the boy.

Zola had a trial run at day care last week which went well, which means that Hinke will be starting work this week (3 days/week) if all goes well.

We briefly saw Sidart Deb and his wife Celine and son Sascha, who came up from Paris to say hibye to Anjuli (his sister) who's now returning to journalism grad school at Cal. Thanks for the "Pirates Don't Wear Diapers" book, Anjuli, it was a big hit at cousin camp.
(Sascha, approx 9 mos)

Sascha looks as much like Sidart as Zola does me (poor thing, Zola, she'll grow out of it). Sascha's parents claim he's a handful, but he seemed like a pretty relaxed kid to me. On the other hand, I thought the bags under the parents' eyes were pretty noticeable.

(el Cid)
(Anjuli)
(Celine, la Parisienne)

Enough for now!

Love to all,

Toby

Next: The Hemonyhouse is a changin'