Another week has flown by and we are still in pretty good shape. Kurt put in a full work week and seems to be getting along with his colleagues rather well. The boys and I haven't had too much success making friends yet but we will work on that. We go on some sort of outting every morning. Mostly it has been to the grocery. Since we have no car and a very small kitchen and refrigerator frequent small trips to the market will probably be the norm.
On Monday we were obliged to participate in some more government bureaucracy. This time we had to register at the Leiden Town Hall. The 'Stadhuis' as it is called has a fabulous 16th century exterior that lets you easily pretend you have traveled back in time (not so great for stroller access though). The interior was gutted by fire in 1929 but that has conveniently allowed the government to make it into a more useful modern space complete with a glass-ceilinged courtyard. While we were not thrilled to fill out another bit of paperwork at least we got to do it in a pleasant setting.
Afterwards the boys and I checked out the library. It has a wonderful kids corner with lots of toys and games for the kids to use. Leif is already a bit bored with the small amount of toys and books that we were able to bring so this will be a great place for us to go play. Our landlord generously left us her library card so I picked up some kids books in English and Dutch. (I used the self-check out. Not quite sure if i did it right but no alarms went off when we left so hopefully 'alles is goed') So far Leif does not care for the Dutch books but Klaus likes them and it is helping me with my language skills a little.
For father's day we went to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. It is a great science museum within biking distance from our house. We bought a one-year museum pass there which is good for pretty much any museum in the Netherlands. There is so much for the kids to do there that I imagine, armed with our museum pass, we will go most every week.
In other news: we have settled our sleep arrangement issues but we have broken our cardinal rule of parenting to do so: Leif is sharing a room with us. As you may recall from my last post this apartment is perfect except for the fact that it only has 2 bedrooms. The hope was that Leif and Klaus could share a room and that we would have the other one. Last week we tried several combinations at making that work. On Monday we put Klaus to bed at 7 and then tried to sneak Leif in at 8. When I opened the door Klaus immediately woke up and we spent the next hour trying to soothe both boys to bed. We tried this again on Tuesday hoping that it was just the jet-lag that made it so difficult the night before. This time we spent about an hour and a half soothing them to sleep. On Wednesday we tried putting them both to bed at the same time. Neither had gotten a good nap that day so they both fell asleep in about 40 minutes. We tried this again on Thursday and Friday with less success. As soon as one would quiet down the other would make some noise and wake the first one. I think they both made it to sleep at about 10:30. On Saturday we decided to let Leif fall asleep in our bed. At home in Gettysburg he enjoyed playing quietly in bed before falling asleep. I think he was a little resentful that we were not letting him do it anymore as it was keeping Klaus up. With him in our room he could play and make a little noise like he was used to at home. It worked like a charm. Leif drove his motorcycles around our big bed for about 30 minutes in bed and then fell asleep. When it was time for use to go to bed I just moved Leif to his bed in the other room. Everyone slept soundly until 6 am. Hooray! Problem solved!...until Sunday night... we tried this technique again and it failed in just about every way. As I tried to move Leif to his bed Klaus woke up and started crying. This woke Leif up and he started crying. At the same time the neighbor next door decided to blast some god-awful music (imagine a Yanni/Jimmy Buffet hybrid). Kurt shuffled Leif back into our room and tried to get him to calm down and I nursed Klaus back to sleep. At that point I made the executive decision not to try to get Leif back into the room with Klaus but just to let him sleep in our bed. Kurt opted for the couch and everyone tried to get back to sleep despite the music next door. After about 20 minutes Leif decided that he would rather get up and play. When I told him to go back to sleep he began to scream which of course woke Klaus back up. Kurt bolted upstairs to quiet Leif while I tried to quiet Klaus. I can't remember the specifics after that but I think we all got to sleep at around 2. Anywho as a result Klaus now has his own room and Leif sleeps on a mattress on the floor in our room. C'est la vie. We will just have to try to break him of the habit when we get home.
On Monday we were obliged to participate in some more government bureaucracy. This time we had to register at the Leiden Town Hall. The 'Stadhuis' as it is called has a fabulous 16th century exterior that lets you easily pretend you have traveled back in time (not so great for stroller access though). The interior was gutted by fire in 1929 but that has conveniently allowed the government to make it into a more useful modern space complete with a glass-ceilinged courtyard. While we were not thrilled to fill out another bit of paperwork at least we got to do it in a pleasant setting.
Afterwards the boys and I checked out the library. It has a wonderful kids corner with lots of toys and games for the kids to use. Leif is already a bit bored with the small amount of toys and books that we were able to bring so this will be a great place for us to go play. Our landlord generously left us her library card so I picked up some kids books in English and Dutch. (I used the self-check out. Not quite sure if i did it right but no alarms went off when we left so hopefully 'alles is goed') So far Leif does not care for the Dutch books but Klaus likes them and it is helping me with my language skills a little.
For father's day we went to the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. It is a great science museum within biking distance from our house. We bought a one-year museum pass there which is good for pretty much any museum in the Netherlands. There is so much for the kids to do there that I imagine, armed with our museum pass, we will go most every week.
In other news: we have settled our sleep arrangement issues but we have broken our cardinal rule of parenting to do so: Leif is sharing a room with us. As you may recall from my last post this apartment is perfect except for the fact that it only has 2 bedrooms. The hope was that Leif and Klaus could share a room and that we would have the other one. Last week we tried several combinations at making that work. On Monday we put Klaus to bed at 7 and then tried to sneak Leif in at 8. When I opened the door Klaus immediately woke up and we spent the next hour trying to soothe both boys to bed. We tried this again on Tuesday hoping that it was just the jet-lag that made it so difficult the night before. This time we spent about an hour and a half soothing them to sleep. On Wednesday we tried putting them both to bed at the same time. Neither had gotten a good nap that day so they both fell asleep in about 40 minutes. We tried this again on Thursday and Friday with less success. As soon as one would quiet down the other would make some noise and wake the first one. I think they both made it to sleep at about 10:30. On Saturday we decided to let Leif fall asleep in our bed. At home in Gettysburg he enjoyed playing quietly in bed before falling asleep. I think he was a little resentful that we were not letting him do it anymore as it was keeping Klaus up. With him in our room he could play and make a little noise like he was used to at home. It worked like a charm. Leif drove his motorcycles around our big bed for about 30 minutes in bed and then fell asleep. When it was time for use to go to bed I just moved Leif to his bed in the other room. Everyone slept soundly until 6 am. Hooray! Problem solved!...until Sunday night... we tried this technique again and it failed in just about every way. As I tried to move Leif to his bed Klaus woke up and started crying. This woke Leif up and he started crying. At the same time the neighbor next door decided to blast some god-awful music (imagine a Yanni/Jimmy Buffet hybrid). Kurt shuffled Leif back into our room and tried to get him to calm down and I nursed Klaus back to sleep. At that point I made the executive decision not to try to get Leif back into the room with Klaus but just to let him sleep in our bed. Kurt opted for the couch and everyone tried to get back to sleep despite the music next door. After about 20 minutes Leif decided that he would rather get up and play. When I told him to go back to sleep he began to scream which of course woke Klaus back up. Kurt bolted upstairs to quiet Leif while I tried to quiet Klaus. I can't remember the specifics after that but I think we all got to sleep at around 2. Anywho as a result Klaus now has his own room and Leif sleeps on a mattress on the floor in our room. C'est la vie. We will just have to try to break him of the habit when we get home.
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| Kurt beginning work on his DNA pulling experiments |
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