July 7, 2025
Kayleen was up and out early today to go to a pilates class and get a hair cut. She found a deal through the ClassPass booking system that gave her unlimited classes for free during our time in Amsterdam so trying to take full advantage.
The Italian hairdresser, told Kayleen she would “style” her hair because she knew in NYC, and in Italy, they style their hair but not in Amsterdam, “No one does their hair here, the women just leave in the morning.” Kayleen let her style her hair but was thinking about how she had really appreciated that about Amsterdam so far.
I did home school with the boys and let Ollie read a book with me instead of writing a letter. He was happy for the change and could use some reading time. He choose one of the books from the series The Last Kids on Earth. We alternated reading pages like I did with my mom when I was a kid. Lenny worked on his words and then we continued reading through the “How To Catch A…” series of books. So far we learned how to catch a mermaid, monster, unicorn, and elf.
We headed back to Vondelpark to keep practicing bike riding and play with the boys. Kayleen rode the kids bike to park which was a funny sight to see through the streets of Amsterdam. The annoyance was worth it as Ollie can now RIDE A BIKE! After only a few practice runs with me holding the bike I let go without telling him, as all parents do, and off he went.
He was surprised when I told him I had let go but was very proud of himself. There was a brief incident where he clipped a pole and took a tumble that almost derailed our success but he bounced back after calming down. What a cool city to say you learned how to ride a bike in, go Ollie!
Lenny was busy playing while Ollie did his riding. He has becoming shockingly good at the dead hang. After watching Ollie for months he always tried and would get 3 to 5 seconds before falling. We never knew if he was actually trying or just messing around. I guess he was messing around…. He decided to try on a thick bar that his little hands couldn’t even get all the way around and got 20 seconds! Then a minute later he did it again and got 24 seconds and then again and got 26 seconds.
He also took a header off the swings and ate some dirt but that didn’t impact his mood much. There was a sandpit at the park and he made friends with two boys and happily built volcanoes with them for 45 minutes. Only needing the occasional reminder to not throw sand.
Later our friends Sydney, Akira, Hiro and Luciana met us at the park. They had a one night layover before heading back to LA but we were happy to meet up again after we had a great afternoon in Paris together with the kids all playing.
The kids climbed trees, played rugby, pretended to be Pokemon, and took turns riding the bike around the park. We left the park in search of gelato and Lenny was excited to ride in the bike bucket with Luciana. He wanted to tell her all his expert knowledge about riding in the bucket, including how he gets in by diving in head first with his legs flapping straight up in the air. We parted ways after gelato and headed to a park closer to our house to run out some more energy before dinner.
After a brief stop at the park we headed to a food hall, Foodhallen, only a few blocks from our apartment. A lot of restaurants were closed since it was Monday but luckily Foodhallen was open. The boys had hot dogs and waffle fries, the latter Lenny sleep ate while laying across Kayleen’s lap. His brief half sleep was enough to power him up for the walk home and desert once we arrived. Then off to bed as we continue to do our best to get the boys asleep before 10PM.
