The Hague: God Sends Me a Good Day

This post got away from me a bit, so if you aren't interested in the emotional turmoil of my personal growth process, please feel free to jump ahead to where you see photos.

Wednesday the 23rd we headed back through the Chunnel to the Hague. I wish we had gotten up a little earlier so we could have stopped at Canterbury Cathedral, but I hadn't thought of it until we were driving past the turnoff. After leaving England we drove through Northern France, Belgium and southern Holland: flat and green and beautiful.

As I explained in my last post, the last two weeks have been not just hard, but some of the days have been downright miserable. There were a lot of contributing factors--cramped quarters for far too long, bad weather keeping us cramped inside or uncomfortable outside, not enough sleep, arguing over screen time, boredom, and everyone getting tired of everyone else (with no other friends or family to relieve the togetherness). Those factors, combined with Ed having some minor frustrations with his tablet scanning and his writing, and me feeling emotionally incapable and unstable, and the Stratfords had turned into an amorphous mass of unhappiness.

I also felt overwhelmed by all the responsibilities and obligations I had put on myself. But I had put them on myself because they felt worthwhile, and now it was hard to let them go. I felt responsible for making sure Ed got his work done, make sure he had someone to sightsee with every evening, make sure he had food and clothes, and otherwise was always happy and satisfied and not annoyed with the kids. I felt responsible to feed my kids healthy, well-rounded meals, keep them up to speed in math and writing, show them all the amazing wonders of Europe and getting the most out of every experience. I also wanted to teach them to pull together as a team and love each other, make sure they always behaved appropriately in public, apply a gospel perspective to everything we do and see so their testimonies will grow, and keep them from fighting with each other. On top of that, I needed to have a working cellphone, no matter how many country borders we cross, so that I always have access to phone, text, maps, and google; and I should always know where we're going and how to get there most efficiently (be it bus, train, car, walking, cycling, etc.--always accounting also for weather) so I don't waste time or money yet maximize for comfort.

I think you can see my problem. But what should I give up? What is most important out of that list? And it doesn't even include my obligations to me--to eat, sleep and get something out of Europe for myself. So often I feel like I am wasting valuable time and money and location. Finding a balance between the benefits of European sightseeing and family living is difficult, and too often I feel like I'm failing at it. It took me a few days, including a trip to church for an excellent and inspired Sacrament Meeting to help me find some perspective. 

When I worry about whether my kids are learning anything, I try to remember that patience, kindness, boredom, cooperation, sacrifice, waiting, cheerful participation, hard work, forgiveness, imagination, are all important things to learn. I think perhaps I should worry less about the math, history, and art they are missing and worry more about the life skills I should be guiding them to gain.

We had arrived in the Hague on Wednesday evening around 5:00. Ed and I were frustrated with our GPS, with SIM cards that were supposed to work internationally but didn't, with our antsy kids, and with each other. The Hague is right on the ocean, and we are staying in the neighborhood called Scheveningen, a resort-type town, so we did have some good shrimp and fish and chips for dinner at the marina. The apartment is the top two floors of a three-story building, with plenty of bedroom space, but also loud wooden floors and high echoey ceilings (we're starting to get used to this, but the kids seem unable to adjust their volume level). Thursday the museum wasn't ready for Ed, so he worked at home, and I tried to take the kids to the beach and the store. All they wanted was to play on their iPads and computers, and whined anytime I asked/told them to do anything else.

I had to spend time in a cell phone store trying to get a new SIM card to work, and I no longer allow the kids to come in to places like that--where I have to pay attention to and communicate with someone other than them. So they sit outside on the curb--this time they occupied themselves with building an umbrella cave.

It was cold and rainy at the beach, and these kids didn't grow up on the Washington coast like I did. They think the air should be 90 and the water 75 degrees in order to enjoy a beach. Wussies.

On Friday, September 25th, our second full day in the Hague, I was seriously considering conceding defeat: taking the kids and heading home, leaving Ed to finish work on his own. It felt like I was spending more time either in tears or sleeping off the tears than anything else. It also felt like everything I tried with the kids failed--we went to the beach and they froze and cried. We stayed home and they fought. We tried to go to a museum and they melted down before we even left the house. The kids could see my tears and were trying to be good, but they weren't doing very well at it. When I picked up Ed from the museum at 5:00, I mentioned that I thought it might be best if we quit now and cut our losses. His response was curt and rang in my ears for two days: "So we're just going to quit when it gets hard?" As I have prayed for direction and clarity and perspective, and as the Lord has blessed me with some momentous tender mercies, I have been reminded of the mantra I repeated over and over to my children when we were preparing for this trip: Stratfords Can Do Hard Things. I don't think I realized until now that I also would need to take that statement to heart. The next few days got easier, but only because the Lord heard my prayers and answered them, giving me enough support to realize that our current difficulties are only temporary, and that the hard time can be endured until it gets better.

I say all this, recognizing that my "trial" may look ridiculous to others with what I would consider more legitimate afflictions--like my friends whose daughter has an inoperable brain tumor, and another friend who is undergoing a divorce. But all I can say is that I know the Lord loves me and hears me, and he supports my righteous desires. I am grateful that my trials are only what they are, but I know that if they were more difficult, the Lord would respond with proportionally greater grace and love.

God's grace in the Hague came primarily in the form of angelic strangers who opened their hearts and homes to us. As Ed and I were walking to the apartment from walking the car (after he had giving me the "winners don't quit" speech), we ran into our hosts, Sergei and Anne. They invited us to come over Saturday evening for a drink, and to bring the kids. They had four kids themselves, and were excited to get to know us. The invitation gave me hope, and carried me through until we went to their house. We arrived at 5:00 and stayed until 10:00--the kids got along wonderfully, especially their 10-year-old boy and Isaac. They are devout Catholic and devoted to their children and to the Savior, and we had a wonderful discussion about families, the gospel, their faith, our different cultures, our interests, etc. They are people I would love to be friends with, and they were an answer to prayer. When we left the Hague on Wednesday morning, we left them flowers and a Dutch copy of the Book of Mormon to express our gratitude for their kindness.

Saturday with the kids also went better than most anything we had tried the last couple weeks. They have been missing their bicycles (especially Joe), so we rented bikes for the day. We spent the morning riding out on the boardwalk, which here is more of a huge paved thoroughfare for a few cars, delivery trucks for the restaurants, bikers, and walkers. We rode out to one of the lighthouses and watched the waves, then out to the beach to play in the sand. Of course, Abby and Linda and Joe managed to "accidentally" get soaking wet, so the bike ride back to the shop and the walk home from there was full of meltdowns and some screaming. 

You know it's going to be a good day when the first thing you see out of your apartment is a Lego delivery truck. Too bad there was nothing in it.

The path to the lighthouse.

A rare, quiet moment for Isaac.

Isaac found a cool jellyfish on the beach. Gratefully, it didn't sting him or anyone else.

Mary, the Harry Potter hater, is finally coming around to the genius of J. K. Rowling. Her message in the sand says "Hello, my name is Tom Riddle. I see you have found my hiding place. Do not try to stab it." She hasn't gotten past the third movie (and still refuses to read the books).

It was a very long trip home for these two.

Ed had gone to Amsterdam for the morning for a work meeting, but when he got home around 2:00, I left the three younger ones for napping/resting and took Mary and Isaac to the M. C. Escher museum. We only had a couple hours, which was unfortunate, because we were all quite fascinated with Escher's work, especially Mary. Being so mathematically minded, I hoped she'd enjoy his mind games. The Escher museum is housed in an old royal palace, so there are a number of exhibits going on at once--Escher's work, the building itself (with giant silkscreened photos in each room of how it used to be decorated), a set of crystal chandeliers by an artist I can't name, and a rotating exhibit room, which right now shows the work of a famous milliner, who I also can't name. There was a lot to see, and I thoroughly enjoyed time with just Mary and Isaac. We didn't take any photos of of the Escher stuff, but here are some others:

What palace-turned-art museum would be complete without chandeliers of skulls, atom bombs, body bags, and giant insects? Of course, there were also trophies and violins, etc., but these are the ones Isaac liked. 

I thought the hats and gloves were pretty amazing. 

Sunday is nearly always nice, and taking the sacrament gives me strength for the coming week. I'm also grateful for the opportunity to repent of all the screaming and yelling at the kids I've done the week previous. The ward members were welcoming, and I'm always amazed at how people just step up to translate for you when they realize you don't understand. The Sacrament Meeting was excellent, with beautiful and inspiring testimonies. Then after church a young mother that I had only just met came and asked us all to come to dinner on Monday evening. I was shocked at her kindness, because she had only three small kids and no reason to open her home to us. She told me later that she was thinking about how we were traveling for so long and thought that maybe it would be nice for us to have other people to talk to besides just each other. She made us traditional Dutch food--a potato/sausage/kale dish that everyone loved--and we found we had a lot in common (like our penchant for "glamping"). Again, these were people I could be good friends with.

Near our apartment were all sorts of parks and playgrounds, including one playground with a petting zoo! The greenspace in this photo also included an extensive rose garden and a hidden tearoom you could reach by a little hand drawn, flat-bottomed ferry across the canal. 

Our last big excursion was to Madurodam, a "park" representing all of Holland's famous buildings and civic works in miniature. The kids got to learn about dikes and wind power and locks and sea trade, and I got to admire the amazing collection of miniatures cathedrals and windmills and churches and trains, etc. We stayed most of the day, and for much of the time the younger ones played on a huge playground while the older ones explored the exhibits. I sat with the lunches so the aggressive and enormous seagulls wouldn't fly away with our food. I also read my book in relative peace, which was lovely.

Modern waterworks in Holland--the solar energy exhibit is behind. Are we tired of the clowning faces yet?

Linda wanted a mini-photo shoot on the giant tulips. (The buildings were scaled 1:25, while the tulips were scaled 25:1.) 

Of course, if anyone gets a photo shoot, then Abby has to have one, too.

I wore them out on Monday with Madurodam and our dinner date, so Tuesday was a relaxing day. I got my haircut and did some brief shopping; the kids got a nap and some screen time. In the evening, after Ed gave a presentation at the Institute where he had been working, the girls and I went into Leiden to have dinner with Ed and his colleagues. (Isaac stayed home to put Joe to bed.) And then Wednesday, we were off again--this time to Germany.