Summer Just Happened

On childcare systems, Sicilian breakfasts and weight training

Jul 19, 2026

We’re in the middle of the season where everyone stays outside too late, eats something frozen and temporarily forgets what winter does to us.

Summer, Apparently

It’s 7:30am in the early nineties and I’m looking out of the back-seat window, my stomach buzzing with excitement. My mother is driving us to our last day of preschool before continuing to her full-time job on the other side of Amsterdam.

As a child, the last day before six weeks of swimming, Calippos, playgrounds and day trips was the best day of the year.

We said goodbye to the carers, the children, the room we’d spent the year in. We’d see each other again on the other side of summer.

Six weeks. At that age it sounded magnificent. I never wondered what my mother thought about it.

A friend of mine, Dutch like me, recently decided to go back to work after her third child. She was desperate to stop speaking fluent bie-ba-boo and start saying things like Do you have bandwidth?

Then she calculated childcare. In the Netherlands, full-time daycare for her two youngest would consume almost her entire salary before she’d answered her first email - a rather expensive way to say circling back.

So they built the system. Grandparents, set one: Monday. Grandparents, set two: Tuesday. Daycare for whatever remained.

It worked. Until summer. Children finish school. Daycare closes. Parents continue having jobs.

Some survive on grandparents. Some burn through annual leave before August. Some pay a small fortune for a family resort, recreating the childcare they temporarily lost at home and calling it a holiday.

That day in the early nineties, my little sister and I ran across the schoolyard towards my mother, paintings in our hands, ready for six magnificent weeks.

We had plans.

My mother was the plan.

Good Taste

Cantaloupe Granita

All great things come from Italy. At least the edible ones.

Since this summer is devoted to my ice cream obsession -in the broadest sense- a granita had to happen. In Sicily, they eat it for breakfast with brioche. I’m still too Northern European for that kind of freedom, so we had ours after dinner.

Blend 4–5 cups ripe cantaloupe with the juice of 1 lime and ¼ cup fresh mint until smooth. Freeze for 5–6 hours, then attack with a fork until fluffy.

No added sugar because Mini-Us does not need additional assistance staying awake. You could, though.

Ridiculously easy. Looks far more sophisticated than the effort involved.

Elevator Mom Diaries

The Unplanned Outperformed

Ting.

The elevator doors open. It’s 7:20pm and, instead of going upstairs towards bedtime, we’re heading downstairs.

Mini-Us skipped his nap, which in toddler economics is roughly equivalent to an adult surviving three days on no sleep, Red Bull and gas station coffee. We’ve tried everything - story time, pyjamas, the affection menu I told you about last week. Nothing.

So I put him in the stroller and head outside. Berlin is buzzing, restaurants are full, and he spots our favourite Indian fusion place on Kastanienallee. He immediately points at someone else’s dinner and starts yelling, “I want that!”

The walk backfires spectacularly.

I rush home. Up the elevator. Back in the cot. Another forty minutes of dramatic resistance. I pull him out - rookie mistake, still my favourite one.

We sit on the floor and I read until my voice gives out. Nothing.

Then I stand, fourteen kilos in my arms, and he does the thing he never does: rests his head on my shoulder and wraps his arms around my neck.

Thirty seconds later, he’s asleep.

I don’t move.

I stand there for the next fifteen minutes, arms burning, and decide I’m starting weight training this week.

Not for me.

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