De Flintstones & De Trollen

While sorting out stuff for our move Rob found a box full of his old comic books.

Now Maarten wants to do anything else but read! If you talk to him he doesn't hear a word you say he gets completely lost in the story escaping reality away to a different world.
He reads in the car on his way to school and secretly stays up late and gets up very early to read in bed.

He just can’t put it down.

Vogelnestjes

Another warm day!
We were excited to spend the afternoon in the sunshine with our friends.
But sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.
They were driving all the way from North Holland and half way their car broke down.
Who would have thought that they will spend such a beautiful spring day on the road(side)?
Such a shame!

Naturally, the children were hugely disappointed.


Now the mysterious dish for dinner was only for Maarten to discover what was hiding inside those huge cow balls. That’s how he called this typically Flemish specialty. These meatballs with an egg surprise at the centre are so-called Vogelnestjes (=little bird’s nests) are quite easy to make.
We rarely eat any meat and it was my first time making Vogelnestjes but it was a rousing success!
Even our super picky son loved them!

It’s all about amphibians and reptiles!

I was really nervous about picking Maarten up from school. All the teachers were looking at me with pity and the children were shouting over one another that Maarten knocked out his front teeth. And then Maarten walked out of his classroom grinning from ear to ear.
That afternoon I was horrified by my imagination how would he look like without the teeth but seeing his happiness shining through his toothless mouth I could only sigh with relief.
I could see he was enjoying tremendously all the special attention he got from the school staff and other kids.
He bite his lip and it was still pretty swollen but again there were no tears.
What happened?


At recess they played a self-invented game Slangetje en jongetje (Dutch for "little snake and little boy"). The little snake was blinded trying to catch the little boy and bumped against the wall.
No need to ask who invented this game!




Namely, the last couple of weeks Maarten is obsessed with amphibians and reptiles.
He received clics building blocks for his birthday and he loves to create various creatures but mainly snakes. Together with other toy frogs, turtles, lizards… they play, eat and sleep together and every day he asks me if I was treating them nicely while he was at school.


Last Sunday we scoured the woodlands of Akrenbos in search for any kinds of amphibians. The small ponds and streams meandering through the woods create an excellent biotope for newts, frogs and salamanders but it was probably too cold for them to come out from their warm underground.


Maarten was a little disappointed but finding this green pool frog made him all happy again.

Work visa and teeth accident

Today we received a long awaited note from the Angolan consulate that Rob’s work visa application is ready.
Also translations of all necessary documents are legalised therefore Maarten's and my applications for ordinary visa can be submitted as well.

Unfortunately, I can't enjoy this news as at the same time I received a call from the school principal that Maarten just knocked out three of his front teeth!

I feel quite dizzy.

Luckily, our dentist is so friendly that even though her schedule is too busy she is going to squeeze him in this afternoon for a quick check up to make sure that no underlying teeth were damaged.

Sleepless night and bad dreams

I didn’t get much sleep last night.
Poor Maarten was throwing up and crying because of stomach pain.
And when I fell asleep even it was only for a little while this vivid dream came back again.

This recurring dream brings me always on a metal spiral staircase made of grating that looks similar to a nautilus shell.
There is no handrail!
I try to continue up the stairs but they seem to get narrower and narrower and keep moving and collapsing the higher that I climb.
I decide to get back down but that’s no longer possible.
I get those very intense dizzy feelings of vertigo. I feel awfully scared paralyzed with fear that I might fall off. That's why I keep pushing myself into the middle away from the edge.

As far as I can remember I keep having this horrifying dream for months now.
So I decided to do a little research online to figure out what my dreams mean.

Here are a few explanations:
If climbing a staircase, stumbling, it means that we must not be complacent, and we must take all necessary precautions to be able to achieve our purposes.
A spiral staircase symbolizes a vicious circle. It is often accompanied by feelings of anxiety and fear and symbolizes that we are spending our energy on something that is not worth our effort.
To dream that you have vertigo, symbolizes gloominess and loss in domestic happiness. You’re feeling confused or not thinking clearly overwhelmed deeply in mind or emotion. Things are out of control or you're out of control.
Stairs represent transition, change and personal growth. When we use them, we make direct contact with our feet. This makes them symbolic of change on a very specific, personal level.
Old or decrepit stairs may invite us to revisit an issue from our past, or something we have been putting off for a long time.

Ooh well, that's interesting! But who knows, this dream might even disappear from my subconscious by writing it down.

And most importantly, in the early morning Maarten was up and about again doing really well like nothing ever happened! In comparison to me.

Sources:
Sapphire Dream Interpretation
Nancy Wagaman
Nelamoxtli Libro de la Verdad
The Dream Well
Ian Wallace

Grey day

On our beloved late Opa Maarten’s birthday I was hoping to do something special.
Both Rob and Maarten had a day off and the forecast was very promising. Unfortunately our beach outing turned out to be quite disappointing.

The sky was hopeless cloudy and grey as can be and somewhat melancholy. Grey sea indistinguishable from the grey misty skies, grey wet sand, grey...

I generally don't mind bad weather but today I got literally frozen and then! also the veggie sandwich that should have been my consolation was tasteless!

Back at home I heard the dreadful news from Switzerland and I was ashamed complaining about cold weather and dirty sandwich while others are fighting for their lives.

I tend to believe that everything happens for a purpose but this belief falls to pieces at times like these.
What is the purpose of evil?
It just doesn’t make sense.

Bois de Ligne

Here in Flanders there are not real forests. Here and there only tiny patches of woods rather clusters of trees stand as a remnants of the past.
We have to drive quite a distance to the South to find places with some more trees and even there you can’t escape the crowds.
This is a very painful fact for me and one of the reasons I can’t live here.

And how would you feel if you had to drive more than an hour to find out that there is old-timers racing cars’ fun ride straight through the woods!
Can you imagine the penetrating noise and stinky gas smell?!

So we left the path and plunged into the forest in desperate search for a little bit of peace and tranquility.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long and Maarten sunk into the mud that was covered with layer of dry leaves. As usually he argued there is no reason to return to the car so we continued our adventure.




It was a beautiful day and even though the breeze was still cold it was quite warm in any sheltered sunny place.
It was impossible to keep Maarten quiet even for a little while but we still saw a family of deer.




However, the biggest attraction was the very muddy path full of singing and mating frogs! Maarten was overexcited but also heavily disappointed.





He was not allowed to bring some frog eggs to raise tadpoles at home as we promised him last year.
Well, who could have known about our move to Angola at that time!

Maman Pingouin

Due to my health condition I was not able to attend the traditional French evening at Maarten’s school.
Have I ever mentioned that his school focuses much attention on the importance of early French language learning?






The children were practicing singing and dancing for weeks and I felt really bad I was not able to see them all dressed up like cute little penguins all lined up on the stage.
Luckily Rob recorded everything and the film turned out quite well.



Today when cleaning out Maarten’s school bag I found a wrinkled drawing picturing their penguin performance.
Naturally Maarten is the biggest guy all the way on the right and guess who the redhead is in the bottom right corner?!

The week Maarten turned 7

Recently I told someone I never really get ill. I can have a bad day when I feel that my resistance is slightly lower but usually the next day already I’m as fit as a fiddle again.
Obviously not this time!
Maarten returned from his first camp day with a bad cold and day after something happened to me as well. I had not a cold but an unbearable joint and muscle pain all over and traditionally no fever. I rarely get fever. My body temperature is naturally low so I can feel feverish already at 36.2 °C. Well, I can get a real fever, like back in the 90’s after the pub crawl in Prague I got almost 41, but that’s a different story.


Anyway, we couldn’t celebrate Maartens birthday in Efteling as we planned and I wasn’t even able to join the boys to the local Quick (kind of McDonald) which Maarten loves. I was hoping to be on my best for the family celebration on Saturday but not this time. I was getting worse, but I didn’t have the heart to spoil this event for Maarten.

It was his last birthday in Europe and we don’t even know when he will get the opportunity to celebrate with his family again. Therefore, completely against my principles, I stuffed myself with some miraculous medicine which promised some relieve. I felt truly awful but the medicine delivered a great job and I even enjoyed the hustle and chatting which I thought will be the toughest.
I might be punished for my ignorance to my sick body because after that I got even worse.
Now, ten days further and I’m still physically exhausted and not able to walk, can hardly eat a thing, lost 6 kg already...

I have to ask myself again why do we appreciate our health most and only during illness?
I've had enough of this!

It’s very selfish but I was really thankful seeing Rob returning from the airport on Tuesday morning when they didn’t allow him to depart for England only with his Belgian ID, as his passport holds the Angolan embassy! Not sure how Maarten and I will survive those 3 days Rob was supposed to work in London.

Ending on a cheerful note... Guess what?! 5 days after his 7th birthday Maarten finally lost his first tooth!