The Best Of June

I think that June is my new least favourite month in Holland. It's the uncanny constancy of 14 degrees and grey and the lurking disappointment that elsewhere in the northern hemisphere people are like, Oh hey summer! 

But it's not all bad.

- Our friend Alyssa came and stayed with us. She'd just spent a week on a bus in Italy with her mum and thirty 80 year-old nuns. Comparatively we were young, wild and exciting. We miss her.

- The other morning Cal pointed at my cleavage and said, "Another bottom. Poopy come out?" This is the stuff I've been waiting for. Children are aliens. I love it.

- Caroline's emails. She's got one month to go before baby boy Denaro arrives and I'm loving the observations from that last month of pregnancy. Cal and I wrapped things up at 7 months and that last few weeks of waiting in wonder is still a mystery to me.

-This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper.

- Cal has figured out the currency of desert. The other night he picked up a snow pea, held it aloft and very seriously proposed, "One bean. Ice-cream." David and I died of pride.

- Skyping with Mum and hearing about all the preparations for our 3 month trip in December. The ditch around the back of the house, the kindy for Cal with its little stretcher beds like I used to sleep on - all of it excites me.

- Lying in bed with David while it's still light out at 10pm, laughing about how lovely that guy is asleep in the next room.