Lentetijd

Spring, glorious Spring. There are, of course, the tulips and lammetjes (Mary had a little...). But the best part is that all the children have come out of hibernation and filled the courtyard with their little fietsen and ballen and all the sounds of a schoolyard, and this year there are even a few of the kids calling to our kids to come play. Once you make it through those endless winter nights, the long spring days almost make up for it.

Daddy's fixed Dylan's bike, so Dylan's out there making up for lost time in his own inimitable fashion -- the knee pads were his own idea:



Avery was inside playing for a while, but when we all gravitated outside she got lonely. I fetched the new sunhat and she basked in the late afternoon sun in her pram. Since she doesn't enjoy laying down in it (or anything else!) anymore, we rigged up something a little different:


I couldn't even get a picture of Aislin, who was running around with her little buddies. She's met a couple of girls around her age who just moved in down the street a month or two ago. They were born here, but their mom is American so they speak English quite well. It does make me wish there were some easy way of getting Dutch lessons for the kids because it's so clear that they could make neighborhood friends easily if the language weren't in the way all the time. They do pretty well anyway, but you can get only so far on two-word exchanges. At any rate, it's really nice to have kids yelling their names over the hills and ringing our bell, and I'm slowly conquering my American-parent fear of letting the oldest out of my sight so she can go ride her bike around the block.