3/31/2006 - 1980-1983

I was born on August 4, 1980, in a small wooden house in the town of Oosterend, on the island of Texel. I came a month prematurely, butt first, and my weight at birth was five pounds and one ounce. I am the first of three children. My first and middle name are Sietse, and  Jan. Sietse after a great grandfather, and Jan after my grandfather, my mom's dad.

My dad's name by the way was Peter, and he was from Hamburg, Germany, where he was born in 1957. He was born Dettmer, but took on his stepfather's  name to acquire Dutch citizenship. That way he could fulfill his military service in the Netherlands, instead of Germany. At the time of my birth he worked in road construction, and he was a parachute enthusiast, and an amateur magician. My mom's name is Joke (not a joke, and it's pronounced somewhat like yoka), and she was born in the coastal village of Petten, in 1958.
 
When my parents met, in 1979, they both worked at a youth hostel on the island of Texel. They decided to move in together within three months, renting the smallest space available on the entire island, and six months after that they got married. They both believed in getting married fast, and to build up their married life together from the bottom up.

Among my first visitors where my mother's parents, who lived on the mainland, but not too far away from Den Helder, where the ferry to Texel sails from. They had just been on a Swiss vacation and had brought my mom a pretty silly gift: a Tissot wristwatch, so she wouldn't been late when it came to feeding me. Isn't a cry baby all the clock you need? Let's face it, I was just that. No reason why my parents would have lied about that.

During those first few days my entire family came by for a visit. Most of the gifts they brought me involved cuddly toys, but one aunt, Nirana, brought me some cutlery with my initials engraved in it. I haven't seen any of it in 20 years, so I suppose it mostly served the purpose of feeding small children. Someone else brought me one of those fire trucks you can sit on, but I couldn't play with that for another year. Oh well, at least that one served me longer than just a couple of months.

I have no memories of my first few years, so all I can do is refer to pictures and written entries in my photo album. On September 20 for instance, my parents wanted to go out and celebrate their moving in together a year earlier. A good thing they couldn't find a baby sitter as I became critically ill that night.

On December 10, it says, I peed all over the doctor from a distance of over two yards. A pretty cheeky entry follows in January 1981. Apparently I tried to pee all over that poor devil all over again, but this time he knew me a little better, and I failed. I can't remember exactly what it was about that man that ticked me off. Weird.

I saw my first snow in December 1980, right there in Oosterend, my first teeth were discovered on March 27 and 28, 1981, and I had my first haircut in March 1982.

In 1981 we moved from Texel to North Amsterdam. My dad moved there ahead of my mom and I. He had found a job at the Netherlands Railways (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), and first went looking for an apartment suitable for a young family. A few months later my mom and I joined him on Den Helder Street in the Nieuwendam district. In December 1981 my brother was born in an Amsterdam hospital.