"Put your husband against the wall"

She said.

"Excuse me?" I reply, looking at my daughter's pediatrician with disbelief.

"You have to measure him," she 'explains'.

By now I understand that she must be referring to our conversation about my daughter's height. They - the pediatrics office (we refer in The Netherlands to as "consultatiebureau") think my little Roo is a bit TOO little and they want to measure her parents to calculate what her 'normal' length should be (how normal can anyone be?).

Anyway, that was two months ago. I wasn't too worried about it (I am quite small, my husband is, Monkey is, my parents...etc. etc.) but you know, I thought about it.

Even though I know this pediatrics office has once had a similar conversation - about a baby being too small compared to same age babies - and these people were... CHINESE. For your information Dutch people are the TALLEST in the world and Chinese.... not the tallest.

But today my husband went their again and wasn't even asked to stand against the wall.

Turns out my daughter is completely normal. Length wise.

They don't consider my family to be normal, I think. I once asked the pediatrician after a talk about vitamins "In what *real* food can I find vitamin A & D?" She replied "In vitamin pills." But she could not think of any actual foods that contain them.

And than there was one time where she asked my 3 year old little Monkey (I think he was 1,5 years at the time) if he could blow out the light she was holding. He gave her a "That's not a candle silly woman" look. It was hilarious.

I could go on and on. But our pediatric system is probably OK.

A friend of us would say "She didn't invent the light'. As in, she's not that smart...

But she's tall. And apparently, that's a big thing.

Meeting Mad, Mad, MAD housewife in a mad zoo

Two weeks ago we - Monkey and I - met the funniest mommy blogger in blogiverse mad housewife and her lovely husband and incredibly smart and polite children.

The day started with a train ride from The Hague to Amsterdam

Monkey LOVES train rides. Bread crusts? Not so much.

So anyway, we choose Artis zoo as the place to be that afternoon, and that's where we met:

She says she's old, but if I look that hot at 66, I would be thrilled. KIDDING, kidding. MadMad, you're not old, you're BEAUTIFUL!

ANYWAY, finally my Monkey met her monkeys:

And they all had fun walking around the zoo.

There was even a group photo of the kids (and believe me, that llama in the background cooperated better than Monkey, who is treating me like paparazzi, like I would EVER post compromising photos of him on my blog.)

After the zoo, we walked to the city to have dinner... Monkey even let MadMad hold him for a short while..

Then my husband joined us for a lovely dinner, during which we did some crafting (who knew we were the creative types!) Mad's husband showed some kick-ass origami skills and Monkey cut just about every piece of paper on the table with his knife. (did I just admit we let Monkey play with knives?)

After dinner these guys went of to see the music that we had heard all through dinner. They grabbed some chairs and watched the street musicians like they were in a concert.

I later joined Monkey and danced with him. One of the musisian (old, gray, two gold teeth in the front of his mouth) thought I was dancing with him. Ehm no.

And you probably wouldn't believe it, but I'm going to tell you anyway. An older woman (complete stranger) grabbed my arm while we were walking away, and said "YOU ARE SUCH A GOOD MOM!" "Dancing with your son like that" "You're a GREAT mom!" and she went on about it. And I thanked her AND checked to see if I still had my iPhone and wallet when she turned around. Because I trust people. But not in touristy cities.

And than there was ice cream

LOTS of ice cream

The internet isn't big enough to describe the mess this ice cream made.

We ended our day with a performance of break-dancers on Leidse Plein. Of course, Monkey joined in. I had a little video of it and posted it on yFrog but can't get the thing to work. But there's a photo:

Mad Housewife, we had a fabulous time! Thank you for sharing your last day in Europe with us!

(Most photos courtesy of mad housewife since I didn't bring mine to spare my poor little back that had to carry the toddler around :)

Back (from America) (sort of) (there's prove in this post somewhere) (I promise)

So once upon a time we packed the kids and suitcases in our incredibly tiny, won't fit a midget in it somewhat small Volkswagen Polo..

And drove of to a cottage park in the beautiful province of Limburg. To a well deserved, sunny vacation.

Or....?

Just a few kilometers from our destination the sky swallowed daylight and threw it up with endless endless endless rain.

Surely this was just a little rain shower, we thought. When it passes we'll enjoy our stay at the cottage.

We only need to find a parking space...

And have hot firemen build a dam...

We could not even reach the cottage by car that day!

(not without getting stuck, like this car)

The cottage park was so badly damaged by the storm, we took the kids to another cottage about a 30 minute drive away.

By the time we arrived, it was very late (I think about 11ish) and the children had fallen asleep in their car seats...

BUT! After rain comes...

OOPS wrong picture.

So there was sunshine....

but even-though it was hot there was still some eskimo'ing

And more sunshine...

And ICE CREAM!

And.. oh no. Rain. Clouds.

Luckily they they passed us. Overall we had good weather, though in other parts of The Netherlands is was raining the entire week.

So there was more outside playing and taking up some challenges at the playground...

And more playing....

And enjoying the beautiful nature of the province of Limburg

BY BIKE!

Pretty and impressive sights

More nature...

Did I mention we were in a little town called America?

Bird spotting... (though not a bird nearby due to screeching kids :)

Since we had Monkey I have sat on more tractors than the average farmer.

Berry picking!

Sand castle building

It was a delightful week which I almost entirely spend without Twitter, e-mail and internet. I think I'll do that more often. It was also great to see a little bit more of nature. Living in the city, I am used to cars, and concrete, traffic, smog. But not little deer next to your house. Our children were delighted to discover new bugs (EWWWW), bunnies running freely, squirrels and deer.

I'm also happy to be back home. I have mixed feelings about these cottage parks. They're great with young children. But that also attracts a lot of children. Which is great when you already have a hearing disability. And the restaurants and entertainment are really a bit cruise ship'ish. Which is great, when you are actually on a cruise ship.

But now this mini break is over... we'll be planning our winter trip to Florida! (less screechy toddlers there.. maybe a lot of elderly... but they stay away from playgrounds... I suspect)