Letter #9 - Ylva

Today's letter had made me incredibly homesick.  One of our old babysitters asked me awhile ago if I would mind sending her one of my wedding photos, and today seemed like the day to do it.  Writing the letter to go along with it instantly transported me through space and time to our home in Rotterdam, sitting on the floor in my room (even back then my desk was rarely clear enough to function... she says sitting on the couch typing this because her desk is currently not even reachable...) working on whatever.

Ylva was one of those babysitters who made us actually suggest our folks go out for a night because we wanted her to come over.  She would play with us, watch movies with us, help us work on our Dutch, play with our cat (R.I.P. Domino!), take us out shopping, swimming or to the playground... downtown to the really cool library, grocery shopping, to the pet store to look at the rabbits (which we eventually got one... and learned that we prefer not to have rodents as pets as they are far too much effort!)  Her family lived right down the street from us and all went to our church, so a lot of times Ylva would even have us come to her house where we would watch wrestling with her family, play with their seemingly endless family of hamsters, or watch her mom work on whatever project she had in her hands at the time.

As I grew older and began babysitting I tried to model my style after Ylva's.  She had always treated us like grown ups instead of dumb little kids.  She would have conversations with us, really interact with us and care about what we had to say or wanted to do.  She was also good at keeping us in line.  Being cool didn't mean not making us follow the rules.  Even if she didn't agree with all of the rules, she always made sure we followed what our parents wanted us to do, and she did it with love.  She knew our likes, our dislikes, our friends, our bad habits.  When I sat for kids I would try to establish that same spirit with them.  I love kids and so it's pretty easy to just hang out with them.  The important part (which Ylva excelled at) was to also remember to be that influencing source of authority (in a good way) so that kids can learn right from wrong and learn how to operate within the society they're in.

Writing to Ylva made me reflect on all these things, and still get homesick for the life I lived then... I know for sure I'll go back and visit many more times before my life is over, but I wonder if I'll ever be lucky enough to go live there again and share that part of my history and culture with my family?

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for those interested in viewing photos from the Netherlands, here are two albums from my two trips back to visit:

Eurotrip 2006 Photos

Eurotrip 2008 Travel Log (with some photos)

Eurotrip 2008 Photo Book