It is possible: dining out with a child

There are a few of those places you must have been to in LA and restaurant Catch is absolutely one of them. We already ate here once last year, but this time it was different with our plus one. Luckily, Otis sleeps fantastically in his stroller, so we usually reserve around six o'clock. After Otis has eaten, we lay him comfortably in his stroller (tip: choose a stroller where your little one can lie completely flat) and we have the rest of the evening together. We never stay out too late, but for us, it's the ideal way to still have a night out with your mini plus one.

Otis is now bilingual and calls out to everyone who walks by ‘Bye bye’ and waves away. The amount of oooh's and aaah's per hour is countless and everywhere we go inside, it's immediately a party. Since Jon is busy writing during the day, we often go out just the two of us. That's absolutely no punishment, I can tell you. I'm so glad that he is zero point zero shy and immediately starts chatting (unintelligibly) with everyone wherever we go. And whether they are children, elderly people, somewhat grumpy men, or stoic LA ladies: it's incredible how disarming Otis is to everyone. I'm just going to keep that up at home, once a week a day wandering around the city and bringing some smiles to people's faces.

Now that Diederik (Jekel), Jon's best friend, has arrived, we are truly complete. Together they form the writing duo for all of Jon's films, so that means extra hard work for the guys in the coming week. When Jon and I bought these lovely twinning Adidas tracksuits, we couldn't resist taking one for Diederik as well. And so we sit on the couch together every evening. Honestly: can we really take this out to the street just once?

I find it increasingly difficult to shop a bit special abroad; actually, all brands can also be found in their own country or at least online. Secretly, it's the most fun when you have shopped something that you can't find at home, right? So when I discover a brand that I don't know, I immediately note it down. This time it was a children's brand called Janie and Jack: a bit of a mix between Zara and Baby Gap. I couldn't resist this lovely outfit. And what turns out: they also ship to Europe. And so the ‘exclusive abroad’ list gets a little shorter again...