Yaya mama

It's freezing. Literally! It's not just a little bit colder than in Taiwan, but they're actually predicting 1 degree C temperatures at night! The good thing is that it is very warm and cozy inside, also at school. This means you only need the really warm stuff for outside. Downside is that that's exactly what the kids don't have. Back to the shops then, to try to find some cardigans, sweaters or such for them to wear under their windbreakers. We're thinking back to the warm evenings at Starbucks and we're wondering why we wanted to go back to Holland ...

Fortunately, it's not really all that bad :-) The family survived the first week of yaya mama. No cooking incidents yet, laundry gets done and this morning I even did the ultimate Dutch thing; I brought Emma and Janne to school by bicycle! We borrowed the bicycle cart from Michiel and with the girls behind the bike, I pedalled them to kindergarten and playschool. It's a 15 minute ride to Emma's school, then another 5 to Janne's. Then back home, making it a 30 minute outdoor exercise. And this four times per day. Who needs a gym?

When we live in our own house, we'll be much closer to the school, but for now, the 'commuting' between the school and the house takes a lot of time. Which doesn't leave me very much time to do other things. Yesterday, we managed to go to the week market, which I really enjoyed. All the fresh produce, at very good prices! Today, Pieter took the car to Rotterdam, with my wallet in it. I'll have to go borrow money from some friendly neighbour :-) Most likely this will be a Aylene, a friend who also lived in Taiwan for several years and now lives in Veldhoven.

I'm far from being organized, but at least we got the girls started on their routine, we have food on the table and (not enough) clean clothes to wear. Not bad for a new stay-at-home-mom, eh?