Jay & Wim's Blog

Sinterklaas arrived in Holland yesterday.  Luke and I watched his arrival by steamboat from Spain live on TV.

In the afternoon, we went to the shopping center near our house to see Sinterklaas in person.  Luke was all excited and danced to the live music.

When he discovered that all of the Zwarte Pieten (black Peters) carried little ginger cookies in their sacks, he kept going up to them and asked for cookies.

Finally Sinterklaas arrived and we got to see him close up.

Last night before he went to bed, Luke put his shoe out and then sang a song for Sinterklaas.

This morning when we went downstairs for breakfast, we discovered that Sinterklaas had left some presents in our shoes!

Here is a video of Luke opening his present.

It's a good thing Sinterklaas always knows what he wants!

A local supermarket recently ran a campaign in which you could collect little cars called racers which look like items you can buy at the store.

Luke has been having fun collecting as many as he can get.  He sits on one end of the floor and Daddy or Papa need to sit on the opposite end.  Each one gets a racer and Luke wants each to wind up the car and let it go at the same time to see if they will pass each other or crash into each other.

His favorite car is the cookies racer.  Daddy's favorite car is the Heinz ketchup racer.

Today is 11 November and that means it is St. Maarten!

St. Maarten is similar to Halloween as children go door to door and collect treats.  However, the children do not dress up in costumes, but rather carry a self-made lantern.  They sing a song for a treat rather than threaten to do a trick if they do not get a treat.

Luke has been busy practicing songs he learned from Wim.  Luke made a lantern at school to carry around when he goes door to door.

Unfortunately this year I was on a business trip to Germany and England so I missed the festivities.

All of the neighbors were impressed with Luke's singing and he got lots of candy or "snoepjes".

Here is a video of Luke singing.  The words are:

11 November is the day...

That my little light...

That my little light...

11 November is the day...

That my little light may shine.

Although Luke still fit in his crib and was a master at climbing in and out of it, we decided that it was time to buy him a big boy bed.

We went to IKEA and Luke helped us pick out a new bed.  He had lots of fun playing on all of the furniture and with the toys.

When we got home, Luke helped us assemble it.  After it was all finished, he could not wait to try it out and pretend to take a nap.

He really loves having his own lamp that he can turn on all by himself whenever he wants.

This morning Luke walked up Wim and said "Papa, jij bent mijn held" which translates to "Papa, you're my hero."

Aaaahh, very cute! 

Today is Luke's third birthday! 

He was lucky to have a birthday on the same day that he goes to daycare.

Luke and I made cupcakes last night for him to take to school.  He had a lot of fun mixing the batter and putting the paper cups into the pan and watching them bake in the oven.  He got to lick the spoon and beaters.  Then it was a real struggle to keep him away from the finished cup cakes because he wanted to eat them.

We also made little gift bags to give to his classmates.  In each paper bag was a container of Play Doh and some Tootsie Rolls which we brought from the US this summer. 

Luke already got his birthday present.  On Sunday, he got to pick out his first bike!  He rode it all around the store and was so excited when we told him we would buy it for him!

When we got home, he was so proud of his bike that he had to immediately show it to the neighbors! 

It took a little bit of coaxing before he was willing to share it with his best friend, Sepp.  But he soon discovered that it was fun to ride it together. 

This morning, he wanted to go for a ride before we walked to school.

Today is Wednesday and that means that it is Luke's school day.  He has been looking forward to going back to school for about a week now. 

Today is also the start of him spending the whole day at school rather than just the afternoon.  The teachers recommended that we send him for the full day so that he can get into the full routines and also get to know the other children better. 

He must have been excited to go to school again because this morning I woke up to the sound of breaking glass!  I ran downstairs to find out what was going on.

I found Luke in the midst of a mess.  He had pushed a chair into the kitchen and climbed up on the countertop.  He had eaten half a box of dry cereal and was trying to get a box of crackers out of the cupboard when he knocked over a glass of water which fell to the floor and had shattered. 

Luke had climbed out of his bed, opened the child gate on the stairs all by himself, and went downstairs!  Usually he wakes up and comes into our room to say good morning. 

We had to both be very angry with him for going downstairs all alone.  He knows he is not allowed to climb up on the counter.  He understood that he was naughty and, while crying, said he was sorry. 

He went to school with a very full tummy.  During the day, Wim removed the door handle from his bedroom so that he can't open the door by himself from the inside. 

Now that Luke is speaking in full sentences, he comes up with some interesting and funny comments.  I have written down some of the more memorable comments from our vacation in Portugal:

Fruit Loops

We discovered a generic brand of Fruit Loops at a grocery store in Portugal.  Luke had never had this kind of cereal before so we bought it for him to try.  He loved them!  Each morning when he awoke, I went into his room and he said to me, “Good morning, sweetie.  Should we go for Fruit Loops?”

Ice cream

This vacation was heaven for Luke since almost each day, he got to have ice cream of various sorts.  We had ice cream cones, Mc Donald’s sundaes with strawberry sauce, freeze pops, Italian gelato and ice cream bars. 

Strawberry gelato was his favorite, but he also liked the freeze pops because you had to squeeze them out of the tube. 

He was constantly in the freezer trying to get ice cream.  At 7:30 AM he was already digging in the freezer.  We would respond with “No, Luke.  First a nap, then a snack, then ice cream.”  Luke would try to negotiate by saying, “Ok.  First ice cream, then a snack, then a nap.”   

Once after eating an ice cream bar, I took the stick and told him to stick out his tongue.  Then I told him to say “aaaahhh” just like the doctor does it.  He thought it was funny and wanted to do it to me.  Now he calls them “ice cream with aaaahhh.”

Traffic

Every time we need to cross the street, we say to Luke, “First look left, then look right.  If there is a car coming, wait until it passes before crossing.” 

One night we were in the house and Luke walked over to the screen door and opened it.  He stuck his head out and said, “Look left, look right.  If there is a mosquito coming, close the door.”

We just got back from our summer vacation in the Algarve in southern Portugal.  We were there from 14 to 31 August.   We had warm, sunny weather every day and were able to rest and relax.

On the flight from Amsterdam to Faro, there were only 5 passengers in the Boeing 737!  That was a strange feeling being on such a large airplane with our family and two other passengers.  The airplane was flying empty and returning full with returning vacationers. 

Luke loved going to the swimming pool and to the beach.  He has made so much progress since last year and each day he gets better and better. 

He can now splash around in the pool all by himself if we put floats on his arms.  He is able to float on his stomach and back and is learning to kick his legs and move his arms to propel himself.  Here is a video of him dumping water on his head. 

He still has difficulty remembering to keep his mouth closed in the water and often swallows mouths full of water. 

We also noticed that he is much more interested in playing with other kids.  On the beach, he runs up to other kids and plays ball with them or helps them build (or should I saw demolish?) sand castles. 

He also found the waves both scary and intriguing.  He loved to splash in them and have his whole body covered by water, but we had to hold on to him tightly to keep the water from pulling him out to the ocean.  

This year, he started getting interested in looking for seashells.  He also liked throwing shells and sand.  One day he started pouring sand on me, so I buried him in the sand which he thought was really fun!

We went out for pizza on the beach one night.  Luke got a children’s menu with a small pizza and French fries.  I think this was the first time that he has eaten French fries.   We showed him how to dip them in ketchup which he found really exciting! 

They also have live music every night on the beach so after dinner, we went to listen to the entertainment.  There were all sorts of kids and teens dancing in front of the stage.  Luke was all excited and started dancing to the music. 

Then he saw a group of girls from about age 10 to 15 dancing together.  He ran right into the middle of their circle and started dancing with them.  He soon became their little mascot and he had the time of his life dancing and clapping to the music.  See the video here.

We took the opportunity while we were there (and while we had ceramic tile flooring) to work on potty training.  He learned to pee standing up and prefers it now to sitting.  However, he enjoys peeing outside against the tree more than peeing in the toilet. 

He managed to tell us a few times that he needed to go potty, but there were also plenty of accidents that needed to be cleaned up.  I think one morning, I had to change his underwear 5 times.  He has underwear with Cars figures on them.  I tried to remind him to "keep Lightning McQueen clean" but it didn't seem to work very well.  :-)