Overprepared

I may have been a little pessimistic about night-training kidlet.  To be fair, the past two years has been rather hellish in the potty department:  kidlet learned to pee in the potty relatively quickly, though perfecting the timing took a while.  But for some reason he was terrified of pooping in the toilet. And nothing, not ice cream, not promises of new toy cars, not even a promised visit to his cousins, could convince him to poop in the toilet.  For more than a year, the situation was that he was okay for the day, but literally five minutes after we put him in a diaper (for bed) he'd poop in it.

Well, the pooping-in-the-toilet issue resolved itself in a most spectacular fashion a few weeks ago.  It would be difficult to convey the degree of sturm und drang that happened that afternoon, but suffice it to say that more than one of us was in tears before it was over.  But it happened - and he began using the toilets for both numbers one and two after that, quite willingly, so I suppose the overall experience didn't scar him for life.

After that I waited a few weeks before starting night-training; it made sense to wait a while before making more drama with respect to wet beds.  Plus I needed some time to gather the supplies: extra el-cheapo sheets (thanks, IKEA!), and plastic mattress protectors to lay down underneath the sheets.  I bought 105 puppy pads - at 20 cents apiece, it was a steal over the 1.07 euros that the Jumbo charges for the exact same thing.  I was going to be Prepared, damn it - I had his bed made up in 3 layers (sheet, puppy pads, sheet, puppy pads, sheet, puppy pads), totally ready for the moment he'd wake up crying that his bed was wet and I'd just strip off the sheets, change his pants, and tuck him right back in.  I'd been reminding him that he needed to start waking up to go to the bathroom for weeks.  I even put off doing the whites in case he wet the bed the first few nights.

And what happened?  Exactly nothing. He went to bed, in underwear and pajamas, and then woke up the next morning as happy and cheerful as ever.  Not a drop of pee in the bed.

It's been that way for two days, now. I may need to find something else to do with 99 puppy pads....

Mobile working setup

So it goes without saying that I write anywhere I can, whenever I can find a spare minute.  In my case, that's recently expanded when I bought a tablet a few months ago.  At first it was mostly for fun, as I slowly acquired the apps I needed for maximum productivity  Now, I've got it configured to work almost--almost seamlessly with my desktop setup.

See, most of the time if I want to do any writing outside of the apartment that means packing up my laptop.  Which isn't so bad if kidlet's in peuterspeelzaal for a few hours and I'm chilling at Starbucks (yes, Nijmegen has one).  But having to lug a laptop around the playground with me so that I can make sure that kidlet's not being an insufferable twit as he hops-skips-jumps from one thing to another is a lot less convenient.

Enter the tablet: it's a small one, with a 7-inch screen.  I'd debated getting a bigger one but in the end decided that portability was what mattered more to me--after all, what's the point of getting a tablet if you're just going to sit at home?  If you're going to stay home and surf the web and all, then that's what the Chromebook is for (these days my husband uses it more often than I do).  Also, because it's tiny, it has the added advantage of me being able to type on an intact QWERTY keyboard with my thumbs, and thanks to Google's ever-smarter autocorrect feature, it even manages to make my life a little easier.

My setup is still a bit of a mess; in a perfect world Scrivener would come out with a mobile app for Android and I would be able save my stuff in Google Drive and access it wherever I have WiFi.  But mostly, what I do is this:

1) Export, out of Scrivener, the current chapter I'm working on as an *.rtf file (the file type is largely irrelevant at this point for me, but I find that RTF files open faster), into OneDrive.
2) In my tablet, download the file off of OneDrive onto the tablet's internal memory. This step isn't strictly necessary, but I've found that sometimes places that are said to offer free WiFi, don't, and sometimes when they do, it doesn't work. Granted, Android systems are notorious for not always getting connected and/or staying connected to WiFi systems. But the point is, it's a precaution.
3) Go to place
4) Open the file using OfficeSuite.  I suppose at some point I might actually download Word and all those other Office apps, but at this point OfficeSuite does a good job and one word processor is the same as any other.
5) Write. Save.
6) Come home (or if the WiFi is actually working as promised...)
7) Move the file back to OneDrive.
8) Open my laptop.  In Scrivener, import the file and replace the one that was there.

I know, I know, it's clunky and horrible, but this comes about mostly because a) Scrivener files can only be opened in Scrivener and b) there is no app that can open Scrivener files.  If I worked in Word it would be a lot easier to streamline. Right now, though, the advantages of working in Scrivener outweigh the disadvantages faced when I need to go mobile.

Walking the Line

Every parent wants to believe their kids are talented in some way, and I am no exception. Part of the process of growing up and away, after all is finding out new things about yourself and your kids.  

But there's a difference between actively encouraging your kid to develop his own interests (good) and pushing them to succeed because you've got issues (bad). What that difference actually is, in practice, though, is turning out to be rather difficult to discern in real life. 

Kidlet has always been a motorhead, a gear monkey, a car nut--you get the picture. If there's a motor on it, he'll love it. He loves watching the lawnmower--the lawnmower--as it does laps around our building, cutting the grass.  He could quite literally sit at a construction site for hours if there's an excavator and a bulldozer.  I harbor a secret fantasy of bringing him to Schipol and relaxing for three hours while he watches planes.

But his real love is driving.  

He got a push-car for Christmas two years ago and he's still coasting with that damn car all over the apartment.  Ever since he discovered the battery-powered cars at the Brakkefort I've been shelling out for the god-damned tokens so that he can get a drive (now up to two) in each time we go.  And pedal-carts--if it weren't for the fact that we go mostly at the non-peak times, there would be a lot more screeching kiddos at these places.  And he is...surprisingly good at it, able to wrestle huge steel contraptions that weigh more than I do  through hairpin turns and s-curves like I'd pushed one of those suckers out with him.  

It's easy to see where this is heading: dreams of Formula-1 glory, like Max Verstappen, the kid who's just won one of the Grand Prix's in Spain.  Of course, I know this is a long shot, at best. And odds are he'll never get past just a few turns on the go-kart track for fun when he's fourteen. I would be okay with that--and that's what makes walking the line between letting him drive as much as he can and making too much of it so damn hard.  I mean, what is "too much" for a kidlet? I mean, if he likes it, what's the harm, right? And isn't the whole point of parenting teaching a kid to get up again when he falls down? Where's the line between encouraging a kid and pushing them?

Buses and Cars and Trains, Oh My!

Kidlet has always been a good traveler.  I feel like I have to start this post with that because everything that I'm going to write afterward depends on keeping that in mind.  Whether it's an afternoon or a morning in town, or a weeklong jaunt to Luxumbourg, he's never had a (much of) a problem sleeping in different situations and he simply loves riding in buses, trains, and cars.  And I've never been the kind of mom to carry around a ton of extra diapers, an extra outfit, twenty snacks, three packages of wipes, and enough toys to fill a daycare--what can I say, I'm lazy.

Laziness is also the driving reason why I'm an absolute minimalist when it comes to packing kidlet's things for trips.  This is all I'm bringing with us for a 5-day trip to Maastricht:  it includes clothes for me, clothes for him, all of our toiletries, snacks for the train (it's a two-hour ride), toys for a week, a grocery bag, diapers for night-time and emergencies, my planners, and my electronics (my laptop, tablet, phone, chargers).  

There's nothing must-have about my travel things.  I don't use packing cubes or anything like that, I don't have special games or toys, and I won't even have a stroller with me. A few things that I do to cut back on the bulk:

• I don't use separate kids' and adult shampoos and body washes.  Really, it doesn't make a difference, and the ingredients are exactly the same, except for the coloring and perfumes used.  So if he smells like coconut-cream instead of little stinky Minion (I did get him a Minion body wash, but that was only because the bottle was a Minion), well, it's not as if anybody else is going to get close enough to tell.  And anyway, as long as you rinse them off well, you don't have to worry about irritation.  
• I make him carry his own damn toys and snacks.  This week was a bit of an exception, because we'll be gone for a week and the apartment that I'm using doesn't have stuff for kids. But even so, between the stuff in his little red backpack and the smaller compartment of mine (it's an LL Bean backpack, and yes, the brand really does last for-f*cking-ever), he's got enough to keep him busy for a week.  
• For my end:  I wear skirts-and-legging outfits.  Leggings are compact.  Skirts don't get too dirty.  So all I really need is enough tops, and even there, I use one jacket and just change the t-shirt underneath. I'm wearing my jeans today and on our way back.  
• I haven't used a stroller since kidlet turned 2.  Seriously.  Yes, it's a bit of a pain to get him to go when he's tired.  But it means he'll fall asleep without issues in the evening, and it saves me a headache from having to lug a stroller everywhere.  Win-win-lose is still winning, overall.  
• I've made plans to rent a bike with a kiddie seat on the back when we get there.  Seriously, if you're ever in a Dutch city and you have a toddler, forget the stroller, just rent a bike.  Well, unless you're in Amsterdam--riding a bike there is just a death wish.  But Maastricht is so nice to bike in, and renting a bike will save you a small fortune in transit fees.  

But really, the most important thing isn't a thing:  it's confidence that you know your kid and what they can handle.  It's being able to accept that sh*t happens to the best-laid plans.  It's treating a long trip like an adventure that it is rather than something to be endured.

Decisions, decisions

One of the most nerve-wracking and head-achey decisions you have to make as a parent in the Netherlands is which basisschool to send your kid to.  First of all, it doesn't help that they start during the academic year during which your kid turns 4, so for a November baby like kidlet that means he gets to start at the ripe old age of 3.  Secondly, it turns out that there are at least 4 different teaching principles that different schools can follow, so there actually is a big difference between the schools and therefore the only way you can tell which school has what available is to go see the school itself.  Most schools have an opendag, where parents can come in for a quick talk about the education principles of the school (Jenaplan, for instance, or Brede plan) and take a tour of the facilities.  So that's what I've been busy with this past month, visiting every school nearby and taking in the pros and cons of the places.

In Nijmegen, at least, you're allowed to pick six basisscholen, ranked in order of preference.  You fill out the form online, and then in a few weeks or months you get a letter in the mail telling you which school you can send your kid to. And the problem, at least from a "which school is better" standpoint, is that all Dutch schools have to guarantee that your kid will become literate and know how to add and subtract, at least.  One school is not "better" than the other, educationally-speaking.  This actually sets a lot of worries about picking the "right" school away and lets you focus on picking, well, the right school.

The part that makes this such a headache is that there are a lot of schools.  In our area (meaning within a 3-mile radius) there are at least 8 schools we could theoretically send kidlet to. Some of them are much farther away than others, and obviously distance factors into the decision quite a bit.  Most of them are ordinary schools, meaning that they follow a standard curriculum, but some of them follow the Jenaplan system and there are a few Montessori schools as well.  So it really does depend on what you think is best for your kid.

Things that I've discovered about myself:  diversity matters a lot more to me than I thought it did.  I mean, I don't mind kidlet attending the peuterspeelzaal where literally every child is some shade of blonde except kidlet.  It's a good peuterspeelzaal and the teachers are patient and kind, and kidlet's Dutch is improving in leaps and bounds, but he's still not speaking Dutch 100% yet and it's getting down to the wire as to whether or not he needs logopedie (speech therapy). But the proportion of blonde versus non-blonde kids is highly indicative (at least so far, in my experience) of whether the school has experience dealing with bilingual kids.   I would mind a lot less about the lack of diversity in some schools that I've visited if they were able to give me a shred of confidence that they had the experience of dealing with bilingual kids, but one of them just point-blank told me, "We don't have any facilities or experience with that."

And, well, frankly--there is something to be said about attending a school with kids from all kinds of backgrounds. I mean, okay, I get that this is the Netherlands, that most people are white and and tall and blonde.  But a lot of the issues and microaggressions and finer points of not-being-racist would be greatly mitigated if people grew up in a diverse environment, I think.

There's this prevalent notion floating about on the Internet that we are in a "post-racial" era.  That declaring,"I'm colorblind! I don't even notice race!" is the same thing as saying, "There's no such thing as racism!"

Except a) we're not in a post-racial world, and b) if you truly "don't notice" race, then you're either deaf, dumb, and blind, or an idiot, because everybody notices if the person they're talking to is different.  Especially if the answer she gives to the question, "So where are you from?" is not what they expect it to be.

Granted, racism these days is not expressed by burning crosses and telling black people to GTFO of wherever it is they're "not supposed" to be.  Not usually, anyway.  And in Europe, it's conflated (especially now) with religious animosity against Muslims, and in the Netherlands, the yearly Zwarte Piet debacle.  I'm not going to offer any solutions; as an expat, my understanding of local politics is limited to "Well, that's dumb" and swearing at the IND every time they demand that I cough up 228 euros for an ID card that's apparently no longer valid once you get a Dutch passport.

But I can tell you what racism looks like, since a lot of people don't seem to realize that they are committing these "microaggressions" when they're "just making small talk." And honestly, I know that they're trying to be friendly, but unlike most Chinese people in Europe (I would imagine--I haven't met that many) I actually possess the vocabulary to spell out exactly what's so wrong about and why it's so horrible.

I'll give you 2 examples:

1. Karel's friend is really big into traditional Chinese medicine and yoga and Eastern medicine.  Whatever. That's his thing. If he wants to talk a blue streak about it, well, I'm cool with that. I'm not a believer--and frankly, acupuncture is just creepy to me. And he said, "I never thought I'd have to argue for TCM with someone from China." Which is just irritating, even without taking into account that he knows me well enough to know that I grew up in the US, attended a medical school, worked in biology, and don't cook Chinese food and instead make a mean stamppot. 
2. I was at the printer's, getting something printed out in preparation for a client meeting, and the guy who's helping me...actually doesn't start up with the whole "So where are you from?" line of questioning.  Nope, instead he seems surprised that kidlet speaks a mix of Dutch and English, and asks me what other languages I speak.  I tell him that we speak Dutch and English to him.  And then he asks me what my mother tongue is.  I tell him it's English (because it is). And then he asks me if I speak Chinese to kidlet.  And then he makes a comment about kidlet's big eyes, somehow completely missing the fact that kidlet's hair is definitely brown, not black, and assuming that he's Asian rather than a halfie.  (I mean, okay, kidlet definitely takes after me in terms of facial features, but how do you miss the fact that his hair is brown?  Especially when I'm right next to him for comparison? I know I'm going gray but I swear it's not that bad yet).

Do these incidents mark the end of the world? No. But here's the thing that white people don't get:  we can't talk about racism without dealing with all of the subconscious baggage that you guys have about what someone is "supposed" to be like.  And that's the thing with subconscious baggage--you can swear on your life, and even believe, that you don't see color/race, but subconsciously, things register, and slowly but surely they color the lens through which you perceive the world. And you can swear on your life that you don't hate [race] people, but hate isn't the problem. It's the thousand invisible things that you guys do that grate on our nerves, but woe be the one who says anything about it, lest she appear "too sensitive". 

But every time you do one of those things, you're feeding a machine that tells people that they are limited by the color of their skin and their ancestry, telling people like me that being born somewhere determines who I am rather than the effort I've put into making something of myself.  You're telling me that you're only interested in my story if it fits your preconceived ideas of what an Asian person is doing living in the Netherlands. You're telling me that you, whom I've just met at the bus stop and am making idle talk to while we wait, know me better than I, who spent 34 years living my life and working out all the shit in my life, do. And maybe I'm presuming--but at least I'm aware that I'm doing so--but I do think that you'd be fucking pissed if I were to do the same to you.

And yet, every time this happens, I feel bad for the person I'm talking to.  I feel like it's my job not to let them down, or at least do so gently. I mean, I get it--they don't mean to be nasty, not like the jackholes who scream, "Konichiwa" at me as they ride by on their bikes (would that eye rolls be translated into bowling balls). And being polite has always been second-nature to me.  But still--why should I have to be the only one swallowing my discomfort just so the person I'm talking to--the one who started this--doesn't have to feel bad?  

Answer: because nobody wants to be "the supersensitive" wilting flower that can't take a comment the right way. Even if it's the one making the comment who could do better.  

Yes, he's allowed to say that

As long as we're dredging up my list of parenting fails, there's this:  

Kidlet tells me, "I don't like you," at least once a day.  Sometimes many times a day.  And you know what?  I'm cool with it.

Because, if we're going to be honest, I tell him that, too.  Not quite as often, and usually when he's in the preliminary phases of pitching a fit, those moments after me putting my foot down about something but before he's totally lost control.  Because, in those moments, I don't like him.  He's yelling, getting worked up--it's a 50/50 chance whether he's able to listen.  If he is, then he can usually be talked down.  If he isn't, then it's a toddler-drama-rama all around.

Here's the thing, though:  I don't tell him, "If you do this then I'll like you again." I do tell him that I love him, frequently and on a whim.  He'll eventually work out that liking someone isn't the same as loving someone, and that just because you love someone doesn't mean they can't annoy the bejesus out of you once in a while.  

And I like to think that he's going to internalize that it's OK not to be liked.  When he tells me, "I don't like you," I tell him, "You don't have to like me.  You have to pick up your cars," or whatever it is that I asked him to do that prompts the declaration of not-liking mommy.  That it's OK to stick to your guns even if people don't like you.  That it's OK to tell people that they're being jerks.  

He doesn't have to like me when I tell him to pick up his trucks, and he doesn't have to like me when I tell him it's time for bed.  He's free to express his discontent verbally, which I think goes a long way towards not having it expressed in a screaming fit.  Because honestly, who in their right minds likes to be told where to go, what to do, what to wear, when to potty, how to do things, to keep quiet, not to yell, etc. all day?  So yeah.  He's allowed to not like me. 

Because when he comes to our bed at an ungodly hour of the morning; when he snuggles between us with a contented little sigh as he waits for me to get up; these and a thousand little things through all the days is love.  He loves us, we love him. Plain and simple.  That's always true, all the time.  Even if we don't like each other much at that moment.