"The Beach Clubs have gone," I say. We've just turned towards the boulevard and I am cycling alongside my daughter, Rihanna Gaga. Billie Stormzy is sitting in his chair attached to the steering wheel, although he is getting too big for it. For months now, I've been making a mental note we need to get the chair on the back of the bicycle back, but never quite gotten around to it, also because even though in length he is getting big enough, but at just three, I still find him a bit too young to let him out of my sight."Oh, yeah!" Rihanna Gaga replies. Billie Stormzy points at a flag and says: "Look, a flag!".
They have gone, a sign that autumn is officially here. It's a beautiful day, though, with a clear blue sky and a bright October sun. It has also been a good day, so far. I took the kids to the Children's Book Museum, a classic The Hague outing for parents of young kids. It's a so called "study day" at the school, meaning the teachers are having a meeting or doing a workshop, and the kids have the day off. Billie Stormzy's pre-school that he normally goes to on Wednesdays is also part of that, so it seemed like a good opportunity to go to the museum with the three of us.
It was a blast. The upper floor is for the really small kids, with rooms dedicated to famous Dutch and international bestsellers in their age category: Frog and Friends, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Miffy... It's a great set-up, with lots of things to do, tunnels that only kids can crawl through, and opportunities to learn the alphabet. I am very sure that had there be as many numbers around as there were letters, Billie Stormzy would be even more delighted, but he still had a great time. Rihanna Gaga, meanwhile, played with him for a while, then left for a lower floor which is more geared towards her own age. She spent hours wandering around in the beautifully designed exhibition, with entire houses made out of books, small corners where you can just sit down to read a little, and interactive games you can play. We had lunch in the museum cafe and altogether spent more than four hours there. Funnily enough, the museum is in the same building as the Royal Library, which is where I normally work when I am not in Groningen, so it was almost like taking the kids to the office.
Billie Stormzy was really tired when we left the museum. Last Thursday, he tripped when descending the stairs and hit his head three times while falling down. This happened in the evening, and we called the GP help service that is active outside office hours, who sent us to the hospital. There, the doctors decided to keep him in the hospital for observation, given that he had really taken a hard hit on his head and that always comes with the risks of a concussion. It's amazing how well healthcare is organised in the Netherlands. A team of pediatricians and neurologists did constant check-ups on him for the 18 hours we were in the hospital with him, and the nurses treated us wonderfully, with constant care and friendly smiles. First my partner could stay with him throughout the night as I returned home with Rihanna Gaga, then I went there when she was at school to spend the day with him until the doctors decided we could go home. They warned us he might still be tired for a while and it seems that is, indeed, the case.
The first restaurant that is open and hasn't been visited for this blog yet, is Bite-Away, which also carries a sign saying "BBQ & Exotic Street Food" over it. That is a bit misleading: the street food here is not exotic at all. It's regular snackbar fare, such as hamburgers, hotdogs, and fries. I seem to recall it also advertised Thai streetfood a while ago, but I am really not sure. Adding to the riddle is that when I get home and try to do some research on this place, I find that online, the place adverstises itself as Bite-Away: BBQ and Street Food, dropping the 'exotic'. Strangely enough, however, Bite-Away is not mentioned on the list of places to eat that's on the website of De Pier.
The young man and woman behind the counter are extremely friendly. She takes our orders, all smiles and helfpulness. Rihanna Gaga takes a kid's menu with hotdog, which will turn out to be fries with a hotdog bun. I take a chicken satay menu, which is chicken satay, fries and some not-so-fresh salad drowning in dressing. Billie Stormzy wants, as usual, apple juice. The woman isn't sure whether there is any. She shouts over her shoulder to her colleague whether he knows about this, and he disappears behind their cublicle, to return with a can of apple juice, much to Billie Stormzy's relief: "Yes!" he shouts enthusiastically when he learns of this find, while the man and the woman themselves seem surprised at the existence of these cans. I make sure to check the best by date, but all is fine.
Rihanna Gaga takes a bottle of water and I have a Westmalle Tripel. As I pay, Billie Stormy is running around, shouting "Are you coming? Are you coming?" Apparently, he is in a hurry to get to the table that his big sister picked and start drinking his apple juice. When he finally has the chance to do so, he almost immediately spills some of it over the table and his trousers. I swipe it away with baby wipes, then pour myself my beer. The kids are drinking their drinks through paper straws, basking in the late evening sunlight. We chat and everybody is content to be here - until the kids get impatient with the long time it takes for our menus to arrive.
In the meantime, other guests arrive. Two teenage girls pick the table nex to us, and one of them shouts: "These chairs are so cute!" Rihanna Gaga gives me one of her famous looks, the one that says: 'This is ridiculous'. She has a very expressive face, and dramatic flair, that she is getting better and better at using to express herself. This is one of the reasons we let her join a theater club, and she loves it. There really is nothing cute about the velvet chairs, which are pink, but in a way that makes one suspect it is really faded red. Together with the black wooden tables, they give the place a very nondescript atmosphere.
Rihanna Gaga is putting all her drama into her annoyance that the food is taking so long to arrive, too, especially when people who arrived after us get their hotdogs before we get our food. But then it is brought to our table. Billie Stormzy rounds the table and climbs on my lap to join in eating the fries, which he loves. I cannot say the satay chicken is outstanding - what it has going for it the most is that it tastes as if it really is made on a barbecue. Beyond that, the sauce is nothing out of the ordinary, nor are the fries. Rihanna Gaga's hotdog, on the other hand, is quite outstanding. She eats it with relish, but leaves the last part for me as she's had her fill. Billie Stormzy asks for a piece, too, then refuses it with a face as if we are trying to poison him when we offer it to him. He climbs off my lap and starts running around. With a big smile on his face, he announces he's going to knock over the table. We laugh, and tell him this isn't a good idea, and he repeats his threat as if it is the funniest of jokes. Then he runs off, shouting that he's going to check on numbers. Rihanna Gaga and I wonder where he is off to, but I suppose there's numbers everywhere. We watch him as he wanders around, checking signs, menus and price tags.
"Did you poo?" I ask him, when he returns and I smell something. "No," he says, "I only farted". I tell him to tell me if he needs to go to the toilet. We've been potty training him for about a month now, and he is doing great - mostly. Accidents happen, but at times he also really doesn't want to tell us he needs to poo, and just spoils his trousers. Unfortunately, when he returns again, I realise this is one of those days. I pick him up and walk to the Pier's public toilet, which is in a bad shape. It is a balancing act to get Billie Stormzy, who is now crying because he is tired and because he hates situations like this, out of his trousers, clean him up a bit, and put on new trousers, while also avoiding the dirty floor. I count myself lucky I took clean clothes and a plastic bag to put his dirty ones in. Normally, I am not so well-prepared.
When we return to our table, Billie Stormzy is in a better mood again. He is now counting in Indonesian - the latest addition to his growing collection of languages he can count in - and has reached 46 already. He continues his counting - which always comes with jumping up and down and running around excitedly - while we get up and make our way back to the Scheveninge Boulevard.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten