After a double birthday party yesterday, I biked downtown with Nicky to the open-air bookfair. I just LOVE poking around old books, and if it's outside, so much the better. I found an inexpensive copy of Gulliver's Travels, which I am embarassed to admit I've never read. There were lots of old children's books in Dutch, but given the many spelling changes over the years, I was afraid that none of us would ever make real use of them. They were tempting, though!! And then I saw them ... I had looked at the Dutch-themed booklet some time ago, but was put off by the high price. The elderly couple running this bookstand wanted only 4 euro for the booklet and patterns, and they also had a cool Peruvian designs book for another 4 euro. And I had to buy them! Now can I just count these as 2nd hand book purchases? Or do I need to start my count to 50 anew?

Last night we bathed all the kids and put them to bed, with everyone in good health. Then around 11 pm, Nicky began crying. Around midnight it came out that his tummy hurt - Nicky never complains about feeling poorly unless he really feels awful, so we took it seriously. Still, what do you do with a tummy ache at midnight? Then around 1 am, he ... got the owie out, as I explained it. Ahem. While Niek helped Nicky, I started scrubbing his room down and changing the bedding. Thankfully he missed the sheep rug, but I think that's all he missed. It was after 2 before we got back to bed, and that 7 am alarm was a very unwelcome noise. So today, Nicky and I are holding down the fort and I have my fingers and toes crossed that no one else will come down with it!