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One of our daily routines is a walk to the postbox to allow Piet to check for mail. It is about the furthest Emma will walk at the moment, so we sometimes check during our near-daily pram ride. We also watch birds a lot. This time, the cockatoos, an Australian parrot, came really close. We see various types of cockatoos in our garden. These were Sulphur-crested cockatoos, but galahs are even more common; we often see them on the grass. Another daily routine is mum and dad's morning cup of coffee, here in a misty morning.
Piet can now reach the ground with his feet when he sits on his balance bike, but mostly he still walks it around or, as a challenge, on and off stairs. The new driveway makes a nice playground for pulling ropes or generally being happy
In mid-April, Caroline and Simon from our London antenatal group came along for lunch. Piet and Orla, who were born only days apart, quickly got on again, had fun with bikes and dug up the garden beds. The next day, we had a small goodbye party for Sam who is leaving Melbourne (again). Her newborn Evelyn got plenty of attention from young and old.
On Sunday, we went to the picnic for twins from the Dutch Playgroup. On Monday, we celebrated dad's birthday with traditional Dutch bunting and an original homemade cake. We blew out the candle together; Piet thoroughly enjoyed his share.
Development Piet and Emma
Piet and Emma keep changing from month to month. This month, they have had lots of fun
playing together, having a romp, being
gentle and cuddly or simply walking up to each other and laughing. Piet often plays a bit to rough, lying
on top of her or even kicking her, so we keep close supervision. Emma sometimes annoys Piet with all her attention. When we eat at the table, he often asks us to shift his high chair into the 'Piet corner', which is away from the table and well out of reach of his little sister. Piet has become a bit better at sharing toys, but still thinks most are his. What is really his, is his soft platypus, which Emma likes to pick up, cuddle and then bring to Piet.
Emma in general likes to bring things, for example her own shoes when we go outside or her fathers shoes or flip-flops. Both kids like to copy each other's behaviour. If Emma lies down in the dirt outside, Piet often follows. He decided that buying shoes is not worth a tantrum after observing that Emma actually enjoyed buying her first shoes. And after Emma allowed her nails to be cut, Piet gave up being difficult on that as well.
Emma is very confident walking: she goes up and down our steep drive and easily walks a hundred meters. She even tries to run. At the same time, Piet is rapidly developing his speech. He knows a lot of words and makes sentences like: vliegtuig lucht, no chopper (it is an airplane in the sky, not a helicopter), pappa glass, Piet glass, Emma no glass, mamma no glass (Pappa wears glasses, Piet has sunglasses, but Emma and mamma have no glasses), mamma draw vrachtwagen (mummy, could you please draw me a truck?) and Piet pappa draag (daddy should carry Piet). Piet is also trying to learn colours - red comes along most easily - and counting - up to two for the moment.
The name Emma
This year we learned that
Emma is rather popular. In 2009, it was the most popular girls name in the Netherlands, according to the
child benefit register. Some 784 girls called Emma were born in the Netherlands in 2009. In the
previous years, Emma only achieved 5th and 6th place. With regard to Emma's middle names: Leonie was a name given to 43 girls (182nd place) and Gijsje to just three (222nd place). Piet isn't quite as popular as his sister. Using the 2009 data, 272 boys are called Pieter (55th place), while John, despite being an English name, still occurs 19 times for a 208th place and Cornelis occurs 203 times for 78th place. Selected names are shown in the table on the left.
In the last week of April, we finally got around to buying Piet a wooden tiptruck from his christmas and birthday money. He loved it instantly and spent the rest of the day moving it and loading it with dirt. Emma understood she couldn't touch it (yet, she may think her time will come). His parents knew it would be a hit, as trucks had become (if not, have always been) the most favourite item Piet asks to be drawn on his drawings.
