Guus Bosman

software executive and technologist

You are here

Home
dailylife

Thanks!

Sat, 12/28/2013 - 10:21am

Nora really likes playing with her cousins. Sometimes from a safe distance -- there can be a lot of noise! -- and sometimes close by. To communicate with Julian she has to speak English and slowly but surely she is making some progress.

She knows some short sentences, like "happy-birthday-to-you" and "merry Christmas", and on command she can say "thank you", "hi" and "bye bye", but she doesn't talk independently yet. Listen to her talk here. Unlike in Bulgarian and Dutch, where she will use pretty long sentences and even sing songs.

Over Christmas I noticed her using two specific words: "no" and "thanks". "No" is pretty clear: when her big cousin gets too overbearing or when he takes something that she has, she will try "no!".

She says "thanks" also -- but she means "give it to me". So when Julian has something that she wants, she will say: "thanks!" in the hope that she gets it.

»
dailylife

Budni vecher 2013

Wed, 12/25/2013 - 2:48pm

Yesterday I took a day off. In the morning Nora and I had a lot of fun. After breakfast and talking to Opa and Oma we went to the pediatrician to pick up a letter, and then to the bakery. Heidelberg bakery is always a nice destination, and with Christmas is it very festive. There was live accordion music. Then to the supermarket.

In the afternoon Sasha came home early and we prepared our budni vecher meal. The Zane family arrived a few hours later and we spent a great evening together.

Budni vecher is always a special meal and evening, and we had a nice selection of vegan dishes. Surmichki, two types of beans and salads. We made three pitka's: one big bread and two small pitka to break. In our family Sasha got the coin -- Julian was the lucky one at the Zanes.

»
plants

Christmas preparations

Sun, 12/22/2013 - 9:23pm

Last weekend was the start of the Christmas season: we bought a tree and spend a lovely afternoon singing Christmas songs at friends.

On Sunday afternoon we went to Bill & Ingrid who organize a sing-in ever year. Accompanied by a great piano player we sang various Christmas songs, traditional, religious and others. It was an enthusiastic group and we had a lot of fun. We brought pepernoten.

In the evening we decorated the tree. It was a little on the large side -- I had to cut it down -- but we managed to get it in the house. Nora put a snowman decoration in the tree.

»
dailylife

Early morning conversation

Fri, 12/20/2013 - 7:22am

Yesterday morning, just after Nora woke up, she had a lot to say. She was talking about the game we played the evening before.

Nora: "Nora vallen! Tapijt."

Me: "Was Nora gevallen?"

Nora:
"Bank!
Pappa!
Nora zeg kiekeboe!
Pappa zeg leeuw!
Nora. Vallen. "

»
dailylife

Instoppen

Wed, 12/18/2013 - 7:36pm

When I came home Nora wanted me to go in the living room right away:

"Instoppen!"

I was confused. Did she want to sleep? So I said: "Instoppen?"

"Instoppen! Bank!"

Then I understood.

"Oh, verstoppen! Jij wil verstoppertje spelen!"
"Oh!" (She uses "oh" to confirm things)

So we played hide-and-seek. Every time I screamed, she would scream and then say: "Leeuw!" -- because I was making lion-sounds.

»
dailylife

A mysterious squeak

Fri, 12/13/2013 - 9:37pm

"Squeak! Squeak!" We were trying to figure out where the strange noise in the car was coming from. It was 9.00 pm and we were on highway 101 on our way to Menlo Park. At first I thought it was the gas pedal but then we realized it came from the back seat. My colleague Chetan and I were in California for business meetings.

At the airport in San Francisco we rented a minivan -- it was that or waiting another 20 minutes -- so I drove one of those huge cars for the first time. But the noise was bothering us -- was it a bird? Some sort of small animal?

»
dailylife

Schoen zetten

Wed, 12/04/2013 - 9:20pm

I have very fond memories of celebrating Sinterklaas with Ettie and my parents. Sinterklaas is a winter holiday celebration around the Saint Nicholas figure that is very popular in the Netherlands. When we lived in Opperdoes we would go see Saint Nicholas at the community center, where we'd get pepernoten and clementines.

I haven't celebrated it in years but now Nora is old enough to participate old memories started to creep back up and so this weekend we are going to the St. Nicholas celebration at the Dutch Embassy.

The tradition holds that in the weeks before December 5th kids can put their shoe in front of the chimney in the evenings. Nora put her shoe in front of our fireplace last Saturday and we sang two songs. I explained her the ritual and she sort of understood it. The next morning (after a rather rough night) we went downstairs... and there were presents!

Nora smiled when she saw them -- but she was also shy and didn't want to get near the fireplace without us. After breakfast we sat on the carpet and Nora opened her gift: a beautiful coloring book about Sinterklaas. She was quite impressed with the whole thing.

Thank you very much Ankie and Joost for making her first "schoen zetten" a big success!

»
dailylife

Thanksgiving Day 2013, part II

Sat, 11/30/2013 - 3:28pm

Yesterday we had our big Thanksgiving meal, something that we all greatly enjoyed. Thanksgiving has all the nice parts of Christmas but it feels less stressful. We had great time with the Zanes; they are on their way home now. After they left we went for a walk.

We made our favorite dishes: turkey with sauerkraut, a pitka bread, mashed potatoes, apple sauce... we also made some Brussels sprout which came out nicely. After dinner we had some chocolate truffles that Irena brought from New York and we watched a documentary, "The Queen of Versailles". We used our new Roku appliance to watch it on Netflix.

Nora came down with a cold yesterday. She only wanted to sleep on our shoulders and would cry as soon as we put her down. Once she was asleep we moved her to her crib. The first night of a cold is always the hardest for her. She is taking a nap now and so far, so good.

»
dailylife

Thanksgiving Day 2013, part I

Thu, 11/28/2013 - 9:19pm

The Zane family arrived yesterday. On the days before Thanksgiving traffic is always bad, so they left late in the evening and avoided virtually all traffic. They arrived at 1.00 am. It was great waking up to a house full of people and we had banichka for breakfast.

I made kruidnoten and speculaas cookies, the latter in the shape of Nijntje, a Dutch cartoon character. Nora loved them.

In the late afternoon the Zanes left to visit Jonathan's parents. We are going to have our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow -- it's a day off also.

»
dailylife

Zebra

Mon, 11/25/2013 - 9:57pm

When I put Nora in the car tonight she said: "zebra! zebra!" and she pointed to our neighbor's fence. I was wondering what she meant: did she mean a striped pattern of shadows? And then I saw it...

We went to pick up Sasha and when we parked at home I asked Nora to tell mama about the zebra. Nora pointed again to the fence and said: "zebra! zebra!" Sasha kept looking for the zebra but couldn't find it.

Nora is starting to learn the letters of the alphabet and Lelya Snezha teaches those letters with names. So there is 'м' for мама, 'O' for Oma and 'т' for тати (that's me). She is learning the Cyrillic letters, so she knows that Я is for ягода (strawberry). When she saw the letter R on a box, she told me: ягода. I explained that this was the R -- and the first word that came to my mind was rommel so I said "de R voor Rommel". She misheard that and the next day said "R voor Trommel", which she then later correctly translated as "барабани"...

So tonight, she saw the З for Зебра...

»

Pages

Recent comments

Recently read

Books I've recently read: