There were still nine days on the counter, but everything suddenly changed. The birth takes place today or just maybe tomorrow morning. I leave with the first flight to Madrid. Probably I will have to miss the birth … but maybe I’m lucky.
It looks a bit strange, but it’s really cotton. It was amazingly interesting to see this cotton plant grow and to see how a cotton ball was created.
The cotton plants still have a few seeds that will probably form some more cotton balls. Afterwards I will have a few pieces of natural cotton. Just not enough to make something decorative and certainly not enough for a garment (maybe I can make a little toe warmer).
The process from flower to cotton went like this.
It is a faith that cannot be avoided. Our little one well be raised in both Dutch and Spanish. Luckily it seems that raising a child bilingually can have positive results. For us it was easy to reach this decision.
The division of responsibilities is simple. I will speak my mother tongue Dutch and Ana will speak Spanish, but only when we are addressing our child. I will remain talking in Spanish when talking to Ana. I am curious if this bilingual education of our child will also have an effect on the mother. Hopefully she will put in some extra effort to at least understand the topic when I am speaking in Dutch.
Of course English is also a very important language, but to not confuse the little one we’ll keep this language for later. I have a wealth of English books and movies so I don’t foresee any problems here.
I never paused to think about it, but using various languages offers additional advantages. I can talk to my son in Dutch without his mother understanding. I can even talk to his mother in English without the child understanding. Clearly knowledge is power.
Time is passing by very fast. Ana is still in Madrid, taking things slow, avoiding stress and trying to relax although the heat in Madrid makes it difficult at times to be comfortable.
Her pregnancy is proceeding very well. The only thing that is a bit strange is that the doctor mentioned that Pek looks like a small baby. He should weigh more that his current weight. To correct this little underweight Ana had to loose weight and at the same time eat more. Sound a bit strange to me, but that must be because I lack a medical background.
I am still very distant and that is a pity. I wonder if Ana’s belly has grown even more. Two more weeks and than it will happen.
We received a very nice book, the ‘dagboek van een ettertje‘ (diary of a little menace), in which a little menace keeps a record of his daily ordeals in his first year of life.
The book is easy to read and it explains what you can expect as a new parent. I loved the part where the father went out with his friends for the first time after the birth. The little menace noticed as a result the milk had turned a little sour.
A few times a year the royal Dutch mint (Koninklijke Nederlandse Munt, knm) releases a special coin to commemorate some historical event.
I often suspect that these coins are mainly meant to add some money to the treasury, but as a collector of Dutch coins you just cannot lat a new coin pass.
Soon a new coin will be released, but this time there is also a possibility to win it! Participation is easy, you just need to solve this old fashion word search puzzle. The result you need to send the the KNM and then hope you will win.
Moral of this story: De herdenkingsmunt vertelt ons een belangrijke historie. (The commemorative coin tell us an important history)
In the recent past I was approached and asked if I would consider placing a link with an add on my website. At first I declined the offer but when they made me a better offer and explained the terms I got interested. Now, somewhere on my website there is a little line of text containing a little add and a link to the advertisers website. To find the add you will need to search a lot on my site.
I figured I had gotten lucky and the money I received I transferred to the account of little Pek, thus cleaning my conscience. That was it, I thought.
The next offer followed surprisingly fast. Another company also wanted to place an add on my website and politely asked my what were my tariffs for the various options. They were interested in these possibilities:
The problem is that after my previous experience I did some research and found out that in Holland it is more or less illegal to advertise any gambling related thing. Of course living in Spain probably make these rules not apply to me.
The article from the law for games of chance:
Article 1
Subject to this Act it is prohibited::a.
give opportunity to win prizes or premiums, if the winning takes place by chance determining which participants win and with participants generally having no influence, unless authorized under this Act;
b.
give opportunity, promotion or have such documents intended for publication or distribution to stock for participation to items referred to under a;
Just stimulating gambling is illegal, and placing a simple link maybe falls under this scope.
I’ll just see what happens.
I have started the countdown. This is Ana’s last month being pregnant and it is going to be the first month in our lives as parents. Still only 21 more days. If everything goes to plan I will leave in a little less then three weeks to Madrid to join with Ana just one day before giving birth. The next day we plan to go to the hospital together.
Ana is already in Madrid, taking it easy and trying to relax. I could not join her because I want to save my holidays (I don’t have so many) for when Pek is born.
What I am doing in Las Palmas, without my wife? Well, she left me a big list with chores, but still I find time to read, go our running, watch some movies, listen to music and relax a little. Might as well enjoy myself now, because my life is about to change.
My Dutch tax return has been finalized. This week I planned to figure out how to validate my Dutch diploma for use here in Spain. Still I need to make an album with the photos of our wedding and I want to make a little album with photos of Pek because by now we have gathered a huge number of echo-photos. Enough to make an album.
Finally, if I can find the time, I would like to finalize the project for the red cross and maybe publish our own ‘project‘.
I’m not sure why, but I think my sleeping pattern has changed because of some change I expect in my life in my near future. The result is that I dream much more and have a much easier time in remembering my dreams. Of course it helps that I have an old-fashioned notebook and a pen lying right next to my bed on my nightstand.
My dreams are pretty strange. These are a few of them.
Some nice chatting, swimming, remembering, playing villain and police, got semi lost, ate apple syrup, pissed against a Canarian tree and much more highlights. We enjoyed it a lot! See you in October.