Thanks to its flat (meaning not hilly) landscape, the Netherlands is the perfect place for getting around on bike. It’s also quite safe: bike lanes are virtually everywhere, and drivers are so used to the many bikes around that they take them in careful consideration. So the ‘fiets’ is the preferred means of transportation for most, if not all Dutchmen. We cycle to work, we cycle to school, we cycle to the shops and we also grab the bike if we go out at night (this will also conveniently save us the money for a parking ticket or a taxi).
Kids? No problem. We just take them in front with us when they are little, in a special seat hanging from the steer. When they grow bigger, they get a seat on the back of the bike, if necessary combined with the pre-mentioned seat on the front for a little sibling.
If you have three or more children though, it’s probably time to get a bakfiets. A bakfiets is kind of a cross between a bike and a beach wagon, and you can conveniently fit in as many as 4 children (although I’ve seen people squeeze in even more!). If you’ve ever been in Amsterdam, chances are high that you’ve noticed them around.
Bakfietsen come in many shapes and varieties. Foreigners usually choose the variety with two wheels in the front for more stability, but most Dutchmen get one with just one wheel in the front because it’s lighter to cycle and easier to maneuver… I think if we were to (finally) get one, we would get the one pictured.
If you’re ever in Amsterdam with children and are interested in doing as the Dutch do, I suggest renting a bakfiets in one of the many places in the city. It’s the most convenient way to get around, and super fun!
xxx Esther
P.S. We typically don’t put helmets on in the Netherlands, not even on the kids!
It is the 17th book in the ‘This is…’ series and Sasek is visiting down under! This is Australia is a wonderful book to add to the classic travel series, first published in the ’70s, which Courtney posted about here!
In line with the later books in the series, the colours are slightly vintage and the images are retro and whimsical. And Sasek’s mode of travel to the land down under? Not in chains like the first British colonists, but on a Qantas big bird!! (which incidentally, ‘flies very well’, unlike the Australian penguin and emu!) I absolutely love these books — they introduce children to the people, customs and places of interest in cities around the world, captivating young readers with gorgeous illustrations and a witty narrative. I also think it’s fascinating to see each city from a 1960’s perspective. And…needless to say, in my family we just love the Aussie edition!
I was on the phone to Courtney the other day and she was talking about getting packed lunches ready for her sons to take to school. I almost fell off my chair!
Here in France (or at least at my kids’ state-run schools) there is no way a sandwich is ever going to be introduced onto the school premises.
It seems like one of the main responsibilities that the French State has taken upon itself is to educate its masses into making every little French inhabitant a culinary expert.
My little girl has been going to the local maternelle since she was 3 years old. At lunch time she, and another 150 kids roughly her size, get taken to the cantine. They all sit down around the table and get served a 3/4 course meal. They start with a starter (salad, soup or similar), continue with a main course, then get a piece of cheese and finish off with a dessert. The weekly menu is hung outside the school for the whole neighourhood to see. And if I don’t have time to check it outside the school I can read about it on my town hall’s website!
Now, I am sure that the quality of the food is not comparable to some of the gourmet restaurants here in Paris, but my kids now know the difference between a good ripe camenbert and one that has not reached its perfect runniness. In my book, this is as important a lesson as learning her ABCs!
I also reckon it makes for very unfussy eaters. There is nothing like watching your peers eat the same food as you to make you finish your plate…
I think that film addiction must be genetic — my kids love movies as much as I do. We have started a tradition of Friday Family Film Night – to celebrate the end of the week – complete with popcorn and a glass of juice.
Now the challenge is finding movies that a 2-year-old and a 30-something-year-old will both enjoy. The greatest success we have had was the Japanese Kids Animated Classic My Neighbour Totoro, a lovely story of two sisters who move to an old country house with their dad while their mum is in hospital. In the countryside the girls encounter friendly spirits, namely the Totoros, the Keeper of the Forests. ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ was directed by Hayao Miyazaki and won him international acclaim all over the world.
The animation and designs are stunning and the Totoro character is just enchanting. I could definitely watch this movie again and again. And if I can, you can bet that my kids can too! They are addicted!
I would love to hear if you have any other suggestions for great family movies. Happy Friday!
Michela and I are often asked about family-friendly restaurants in our respective cities. Try as we might, we are hard pressed to come up with good suggestions. There is a huge North/South divide in Europe regarding the obvious signs of child friendliness in restaurants.
In Northern Europe you will more often than not be offered a highchair when you enter a restaurant with your kids. Often you find changing tables in the bathrooms and kids menus, and many places even have special toys they bring out. In Southern Europe it is rare to find this kind of service, BUT this does not mean that children are not welcome. In fact, they are almost always welcome, but are expected to fit around the adults.
As I now have two little ones with me constantly, I have been surprised by how many restaurants here in France are more than willing to put together a child portion of simple food, though there is almost never a specific child menu; you just have to ask. There may be no toys, but everyone from the cook to the other customers will comment on how beautiful your child is, which my 3-year-old personally finds hugely entertaining, (she is definitely not going to develop an inferiority complex).
One of our favourite places in Paris, the Café de l’Industrie close to Bastille is a perfect example. On the surface it looks like a lot of the establishments in the area. It is nicely decorated, has a great menu and lots of people hanging out drinking coffees and smoking cigarettes and philosophizing about life. If you turn up with a brood of youngsters though, they will make sure you get a comfortable table and offer the little ones pasta or sausages and mash as half portions. The young and beautiful waitresses find the spectacle of small children covering themselves in potatoes hugely entertaining. (So would I by the way, if I did not have to try and wash dried up mashed potatoes out of my daughters hair…)
You will be surprised by how much kids are actually accepted in restaurants if you are ever holidaying in France and if someone makes a fuss, just throw your arms up in the air and gesticulate wildly and walk out, just as the locals would do!
Sometimes I get fed up of living in the centre of a big city.
The traffic, the pollution the lack of green space, and space in general seems so much more oppressing in the summer time. But then I get reminded of the big advantages of city life: the huge range of cultural events right at my fingertips. From the 2nd to the 14th of July the Paris Film Festival is on and part of the festival is a great children’s program.
This year the focus is on my favourite pet subject, animation. Lots of things are on offer: workshops, lectures and, of course film screenings. The first public screening in France of the new Pixar 3D extravaganza “Up” is on offer, as are modern day classics like Wallace and Gromit and Disney’s 1963 “The Swords in the Stone”. The films are for kids aged 3 and up, and there are so many choices that it should satisfy all tastes. You can check out the program here.
There has been so much in the newspapers lately about Madonna adopting from Malawi. I am not an expert in adoption and cannot claim to understand the complexities both legally and ethically of adopting from another country and culture. But I do wonder whether it’s okay to take a child away from the culture it is deeply rooted in and whisk them away to a completely different environment. I honestly don’t know.
Maybe naively I have always considered adoption as a very viable option if I had not been able to have my own children. I do think that I could love a child as my own irrelevant of whether it is genetically related to me and my husband or not. There seem to be so many children in the world without a family who need a home and a loving environment.
But, in the case of Madonna, is this a mother honestly trying to give a little girl a home and love and support, or is she a celebrity used to getting whatever she wants and not thinking of the impact her decisions have on the life of this little girl?
I have come to the point that I cannot wait for a computer chip to be inserted into the brain of my children and we can get rid of passports and the like.
This is not because I particularly like the idea of Big Brother watching them all the time — I am a big defender of personal freedom…. but I just cannot deal with having to spend another minute in a government office sorting out passports and social security or anything else, especially with an overheated, overtired toddler squirming in my arms.
The regulations for passports in France have gotten to the point of an absurd comedy. The entire team in my local passport office spent a whole half an hour debating if they could accept the photo of my daughter as she had her mouth slightly open. She got off on the technicality that you could not see her teeth, because, in fact, she does not have any teeth! They then spent another half an hour trying to override the automated computer system what was rejecting the darn photo as my toddler had a shadow under her chin. The fact that she has no neck, being a toddler, means there is always going to be a shadow… but this exception had not been programmed into the computer.
I think security measures are getting insane. I understand the need for national security but a little bit of common sense needs to be applied! My little toddler is not going to get up to much mischief…. though her mother might if, she ever has to deal with the French passport people again!
Is this only a French thing or are all countries getting this ridged?
My 13-month-old is making me into one very proud Mommy, as she is starting to say her first few words! She has ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ down, she is good at saying ‘yep’ and thankfully not so good at saying ‘no’ (though she does shake her head very vehemently to get her point across). But she has utterly proved her French-ness by deciding that her fourth word would be: Oh La La!
Thinking about it, she is being very clever. With just this one word she can express a plethora of emotions. You see, Oh La La in France is a state of mind and it means so much. In little Violette’s case she uses it when she drops something or is not happy with something, she uses it when she is surprised, or when she is given something she likes. It is always linked to a bit of a resignated head shake or alternatively with throwing her hands up in the air — theatrical gestures she must observe a thousand times a day.
Let me give you a few examples for Oh La La. A person accidentally steps on your foot: Oh La La. A person is wearing a weird hat: Oh La La. A person has jumped the queue and gone in front of you? Oh La La. It can also be used in a complimentary way: some dude likes a girl’s cleavage? Oh La La La La!
You can not be French without grasping the importance of Oh La La-ing, so I am very happy that little Violette has embraced her French-ness wholeheartedly.
So this is my main advice for you guys who visit France without having a grasp on the language. Forget about learning to say: “excuse me, what is the way to the train station, please”. Just practice Oh La La in its various forms, and you will be accepted by the natives with no problems at all!
Quentin Blake must be one of the world’s most famous children’s book illustrators. The books he illustrated for Roald Dahl are now classics.
I recently wrote a post about his book “Mrs Armitage and the big wave” which my daughter loves, and whilst researching it, stumbled over his official website. It turns out to be one of the most inspirational websites I have come across in a long time. It is a great gateway into the world of illustration.
We are all used to looking at illustrations every day, all the time, especially when reading children books. It is so easy to forget all the work and thought that is needed to illustrate words well. Quentin Blake describes in detail what goes into creating an illustration and how his ideas come together. It makes me want to become an illustrator (unfortunately my 3-year-old already draws better than me).
I love the kid’s section of the website — there are some really great projects to do. You can let your child paint a Quentin Blake original, then print them out and decorate your walls. There are templates for letter paper, bookmarks and bookcards to print out and colour in. If you are interested in the creative process of illustration it is definitely worth a look!
The Eastern Market, in DC’s Southeast quadrant, has always been one of my favorite weekend stops, long before I lived in the neighborhood. The market itself is DC’s oldest food market, dating to 1873, housed in an old brick hall. (The hall suffered from a big fire a few years back, and the market is in a temporary shelter across the street, with the old/refurbished shelter set to re-open soon.) Just like a European market, you can come here to visit your neighborhood butcher, the florist, the cheese monger, the produce man, etc. People from all over the city also flock to Market Lunch, for greasy spoon southern-influenced breakfast and lunch. The bluebucks (blueberry buckwheat pancakes) are to die for! But be sure to get there early, as the lines can be lengthy…. Have Dad stand in line while you take the kids to explore all the other merchants nearby in the hall. After lunch? Take a stroll through the flea market next door (Saturday and Sunday only) to check out furniture and other treasures, and walk the whole block of 7th street — tents are set up all along the street with vendors and artisans selling jewelry, paintings, and all sorts of cool things. And be sure to look for the cafe with the bubble-blowing machine outside — that in itself inspires my 4-year-old to walk the 5 blocks to the market!
Today is the first of May! All over the world people celebrate Labour Day and here in France it is a bank holiday accompanied by demonstrations by all the labour unions. But in typical French fashion, politics are mixed with romantic gestures…
It is customary here to give ladies a small bouquet of Lily of the Valley (known over here as le muguet) on the first of May. It dates back to the court of Charles de IX who decided to present every lady at his court with a bouquet of Lily of the Valley to celebrate the end of winter. The tradition stuck and, being a republic now, the custom is not reserved to the fine ladies of the court but to the fine French ladies everywhere! It is so lovely to walk around Paris on the first of May and see Lily of the Valley being sold on every street corner. You suddenly realise that spring is here and summer is just around the corner….
Holland will be dressed in orange today! Because of the origins of our queen (she’s from the House of Orange), our national colour is orange. Not the deep terra cotta kind of orange, but just plain, nice and bright orange! And once a year, in honour of the queen, we celebrate Queensday. We take the day off, dress in the appropriate color (ALL of us!), and hit the streets to find treasures at the many flee-markets on the streets. Amsterdam’s biggest park, the Vondelpark, is dedicated to kids today.
Even Dutchmen abroad will wear something orange today, so see if you can spot them on the streets!
My 3-year-old is a lover of books and her personal book collection is threatening to drawf mine. A week ago I decided it was time to take action so I took her to the local library. I have been kicking myself ever since that I had not thought of this before!
I had completely forgotten about public libraries. I vaguely remember going with my mom when I was a kid, but the thing I remember most is the musty smell of old, humid books in a scary Victorian building. My more recent memory of a library was a place to whisper sweet nothings and flirt at university; not much book reading was done.
Our local library here in Paris is a very distant and very modern cousin of the libraries of my childhood. Clean, bright and organised, there is a huge children’s section with little tables to sit at. All the books are kept at ground level so kids can browse through them all by themselves. I didn’t realise how much my daughter would love it — she was in heaven, discovering old favourites and new treasures. There is even a small international book section with English children’s books. Membership is free for anyone, so my daughter is now the proud owner of her first library card.
There was a faint echo of my university library days though, when I noticed her shimmying up to a little boy and having a giggle and a bond over a book. Oh well, I guess some things will never change; flirting will always be part of the library experience…
Here in France a lot of the songs the children sing have been around for generations. It’s quite cute actually — my daughter is now singing songs that my grandmother sang with me, which have been hidden somewhere in a forgotten part of my brain and which I am now remembering.
So I have picked up a couple of CDs and we listen to them loads and have a bit of a dance-off (though the CDs we have are fun, I have not as of yet found a CD that is outstanding and that I could recommend). I was being a bit slow on the uptake and it is only after a while that I started to tune in and realise that some of the songs are not really politically correct in the world of 2009…
For example, I am not sure how appropriate it is for a 3-year-old to sing “I have really good tobacco, but you’re not going to get any”!!! I mean, kids and tobacco don’t really mix and if they did, sharing with their friends would be a good thing to encourage. Take another song: “Ne pleur pas Jeanette”. This is the story of a girl who is crying because someone is going to marry her off to a man not of her choosing. She wants a dude called Pierre, who is currently in prison. To stop her from having Pierre she is told that he is going to be hanged. In another song a girl is happily skipping around the Lorraine in her clogs when some guys come up to her and tell her that she is really ugly.
I guess in old-school France political correctness was not high on the agenda…. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of sweet, cute and innocent songs out there, but it is quite funny to see some very incorrect ones slipping through the radar in our very correct world. I’d love to hear what kids are singing in other countries!
We have a tradition here in the Netherlands: we put up an Easter tree. It’s not really a tree, merely a couple of curly willow branches put in a vase. We hang colourful eggs from lovely ribbons in the tree, which have the symbolic meaning of new life on earth. Which reminds me – my neighbour just gave birth to her third child yesterday, a little girl weighing 5195 grams… NATURAL BIRTH!!!
Back to the Easter tree… it’s great fun to decorate it with the kids. They can paint their own eggs, or maybe sew little birds like the ones pictured (I found them on Flickr). And it makes such a lovely centerpiece on the Easter table!
So, I have finally made the decision… I am going to go back to work! We have 2 wonderful daughters and I have taken almost 3 years off, with a little bit of freelance work here and there. It has been a great time but I really feel like I am ready to get back amongst it. I already know it is going to be incredibly hard not spending my days with the kids, but in theory I am really looking forward to getting my teeth back into a project and being ‘Emilie, the professional’ instead of ‘Emilie, the mom’.
So why am I finding it so difficult to actually get going, instead of only talking about it? I have even gone as far as getting a totally new wardrobe to turn myself into this self-confident, go-getter. I thought that maybe if I looked the part, I would be the part. For obvious reasons that was a bad idea… I now own some pretty, new dresses but it still has not made me get in touch with my inner professional self.
At the end of the day, sending out CVs and trying to sell yourself is hard, and doing it surrounded by two lovely but demanding children is almost impossible. I also should not blame it on the children; I am finding thousands of excuses about why I have not updated my CV or sent off an important email.
To force myself into taking action, I have resorted to sorting out part-time childcare. Now I have no excuses; I need to sit down in front of the computer (after I have reorganised my desk again and again) and start selling myself. Let’s hope someone likes what they see….
After being completely refurbished, the Forum des Images finally reopened its doors a couple of months ago. Founded about 20 years ago, the Forum is Paris’ premier film library and cultural cinema venue.
The new Forum is fantastic, and a stark contrast to the ugly Forum des Halles shopping centre that houses it. (The Forum des Halles is now also up for a major refurbishment, so hopefully what is known as the eyesore of Paris, will finally disappear). It does mean that the Forum des Images is right in the centre of Paris and very easily accessible.
One of the major attractions are the children’s film screenings. There are screenings every weekend and on Wednesdays. At the moment, during mid-term holidays, there is a very popular children’s film festival on. Films start from 18 months onwards. The choice varies from classic art school films to old classic Disney films.
They also have great workshops for kids, mostly from 3 onwards, teaching kids about the basics of film making and animation. As both my husband and I work in animation we have been dragging our 3-year-old to lots of workshops and she has been absolutely loving it!
All the workshops and films are in French, though a lot of the films for the little ones are not dialogue-based so can be enjoyed by non-French speakers too!
In the US and other English speaking countries you had the “Breakfast Club”. In France we had a movie called “La Boum”, the ultimate 1980s teen movie. It was the movie that propelled Sophie Marceau into stardom. It had a very simple plot: teenage girl fancies boy and wants to have a party at her house and in parallel her parents are having marital problems… It all results in a happy ending. The whole package came with a catchy soundtrack and we all LOVED it.
Some clever French Film writer has revived the idea and a film called LOL just came out in France; this time casting Sophie Marceau in the role of the mother instead of the daughter. I went to see it recently with a girlfriend (we loved it) and it turned out to be a very seminal moment in my life. I suddenly realised that I was not identifying with the teenage heroine but with her mother!!! I don’t think that has ever happened to me before. Granted she is a trendy, good looking mother… but still, I think I have finally realised that I am not a teenager anymore.
I think one of the reasons I have successfully been living in denial is because the lines between being a teenager and a 30 something woman have become a bit more blurred nowadays. Girls are growing up much faster and women our age are becoming old a lot later. I am still listening to the same music as 17-year-olds and I still buy my clothes in the same stores as they do. In fact mothers and teenage daughters swap clothes all the time nowadays. I would not have worn any of my mother’s clothes except the ones I found stuck at the back of the closet which were vintage circa 1968. A modern day mother is not a daggy person wearing sensible shoes and skirts anymore. We do wear sensible foot wear, they just happen to be ballerina flats and trainers.
But at the end of the day, clothes and music aside, I am a grown-up now and not a teenager. Though the revelation was a shock, I am quite liking the idea…. I won’t feel like I am missing out on something amazing if I don’t go out for a weekend and going to bed at 10 pm is OK and not uncool. I think I am going to enjoy accepting that I now am a grown up!
Besides a few anonymous cards that were sent between secret lovers (mostly between smitten teenagers, to be specific), we don’t have an actual Valentines tradition here in the Netherlands.
The last 15 years however, it seems that Valentine’s Day has become a holiday celebrating love in general instead of the more mysterious anonymous love it was traditionally about. Lovely, of course. I mean, we can’t celebrate the wonderful things in life enough… but it’s all gotten a bit too commercial for my taste. All those bright red hearts and teddy bears around town are not really my thing.
The cute folded hearts by Martha Steward pictured on the left are, and I’m going to try to make some this week with my daughter. Because this year we are expecting some special and much loved visitors for Valentines day…
Thanks to its flat (meaning not hilly) landscape, the Netherlands is the perfect place for getting around on bike. It’s also quite safe: bike lanes are virtually everywhere, and drivers are so used to the many bikes around that they take them in careful consideration. So the ‘fiets’ is the preferred means of transportation for most, if not all Dutchmen. We cycle to work, we cycle to school, we cycle to the shops and we also grab the bike if we go out at night (this will also conveniently save us the money for a parking ticket or a taxi).
Esther in Amsterdam
February 2nd, 2010
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