The van Putten Diaries

I interviewed Miles for the third time on May 4th.  We were on a glamping vacation in the Veluwe national park on the eastern edge of the country. This is directly what he said.  My questions to him and clarifications will be in non-italics font while Miles' answers will be in italics . Yesterday, you said that when you were thinking of our Dutch house, you actually visualized our Tacoma house - what came to your mind when you were thinking that? Lila.   Just Lila? Yeah. You thought about our Dutch house and you were like "oh, we live here now, we came from home and we live in NL but there was a cat there" ? I was sad about Lila. Oh.  You know, we just passed her birthday - she's 15 now.  An old cat. *convo about old cats* If you were to meet someone, would you still say "I'm American" if they were asking questions to try to get to know you?  For example, if we were visiting Spain and someone asked you where you were from - what would you say...

I interviewed Miles (age 7) for the second time on March 29th.  This is directly what he said, though some of the answers required my deeper probing before they were answered.  My comments and clarifications will be in non-italics font while Miles' answers will be in italics .  The last time we talked, you were talking about how excited you were to move into our new house because there would be more space and you would be able to get more things.  Does it feel better here than being at the apartment? Yeah. What are your favorite things, either - (interrupted) The dogs. The dogs are your favorite things? One of my favorites.  Also that park right there. Yeah, that park is pretty awesome.  What are some of the best things about being in Leiden?  Or about being in a different country and a different culture? I can tell you one of the NOT so good things in Amsterdam. In Amsterdam?  What do you know about Amsterdam?  (he's never been) We...

I interviewed Miles - or I tried, anyway - on December 30th (barely age 7) and I'm just getting around to the transcription.  This is directly what he said, though some of his answers required my deeper probing before he answered them.  My comments and clarifications will be in non-italics font while Miles' answers will be in italics .  And, for the record, David (age 4) refused to participate. What are some of the best things about being here? Well, the dogs don't bark as much.  The dogs around this neighborhood.  Also, there's a lot of fresh bread - bakeries - and there's a lot of fun Christmas routines around Christmas.  There's a lot of parks.  And one more thing, there's much more cute cats out than in America.   (This is absolutely false, but I'm glad he's happy about the few we've seen.) What are some of the things that are different between here and Tacoma, either good or bad differences?  What have you observed? I've observed that th...