Times, They're a Changing: More Writer, Less Mother?

This week my youngest son turned four. Four. That means he gets to go out into the big, wide world on his own. Well, it means he starts primary school. It's a bittersweet moment. It means my role will change. It will be the first time in nearly nine years that I will have been at home during the week without any children around me. My sons will continue to come home at lunchtime from school and for a little while at least my youngest will be home in the afternoons whilst he builds up his school hours to full-time.

But it's a big change for me. As a mother. As a writer. Hours suddenly open up to me to work more. The projects I have been planning and scheming for the past few years may actually come to fruition. More time to get out and about. More time to work in locations other than my home. 

And as if by magic I received an email from Scaramanga* asking if I would like to take a peek at one of their bags. After squealing a little with delight (shoes I can take or leave, but bags....whole different story!) I realised that the request was perfect timing. I was on the look out for a 'work' bag, one to carry my laptop, countless pages of incoherent notes that come to me as ideas for blog posts, articles and book chapter ideas and all the other things I lug around simply because I have three children.

The large messenger bag I picked out turned to be the perfect choice. Last weekend all five of us headed to the beach to blow the cobwebs away. Through September one son after another has fallen ill with one virus or another, and then head colds hit me and my husband. We needed to get out and get some good sea air in our lungs so we headed to Wassesnaarseslag. 

I loaded up my beautiful bag with my folders and notes, a notepad, my copy of The Whole-Brain Child book I'm currently reading (which I thoroughly recommend!), pens and the bits and pieces that always sit in my bag. There's plenty of space for everything I could possibly want to take out with me. I planned a bit of writing and reading whilst the boys dug up the beach, as they are prone to do when they get anywhere near the sand.

We had a great few hours. We left home wearing coats, jumpers and even a scarf or two as the weather was cloudy and a bit chilly. By the time we headed home the boys were stripped down to their t-shirts. And their jumpers and scarves? Yep, tucked away safely in my bag........... 

The hours I have to write may be on the rise, but there's no changing the fact that I'm first a mother, second a writer. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

*I received a free bag of my choice from Scaramanga in exchange for a review on this blog. All views are my own.

Food is Not Just Food When You're an Expat

As a child there was nothing more magical for me than the sound of the ice cream man playing in the distance, the gentle jingle getting louder as he approached my street. My brother and I would run inside to ransack purses and beg and plead to scrape together enough change to buy a '99' each and we'd run back outside clutching the coins in our clammy hands and join the excited queue of neighbourhood children. The anticipation of getting that cone in our hands, of hungrily licking the soft ice cream and biting into that chocolate flake. The summers of my childhood.

That was the image invoked when I opened the package sent to me by the British Corner Shop (BCS) and I pulled out a pack of Cadbury's Flakes. (*I received a free hamper of British goodies from the British Corner Shop in exchange for writing a blog post. All product links are links to BCS*).

When you are an expat food takes on an unusual ability to evoke a sense of home, to stir up memories long forgotten, to instil a feeling of familiarity and comfort. Food from your 'home' country becomes more than just food; it prompts emotions.

Take the Pot Noodle Chicken and Mushroom nestled in the hamper sent to me by the British Corner Shop. Personally I don't eat Pot Noodles, I'm not sure I ever have but the picture of a kettle on the pot (the one meaning you just need to add boiling water to the pot) made me giggle. Why on earth is that I hear you ask.... well it evokes a memory stored deep in my data banks, one from the time I attended university.

I have a friend, who will remain nameless (but you know who you are) who fancied a spot of Ambrosia rice pudding whilst in his halls of residence room. He wanted hot Ambrosia rice pudding. So he heated it up in his kettle. Needless to say he needed to invest in a new kettle and he never got to enjoy that particular tin of rice pudding. Three words: rice pudding explosion. It's hard looking at a tin of rice pudding, or the picture of a kettle on a Pot Noodle, even twenty years on without thinking of him.

And talking of Pot Noodles, as I was, the Pot Noodle in the hamper did not go to waste. My Dutch husband took it to work for his lunch. His verdict? "Best wel lekker!" A Pot Noodle convert.

The box also contained goodies that took me back to my early expat days - the days when the only flavour crisps you could get here in the Netherlands comprised paprika and ready salted. Crisps were a standard part of my shopping list when I went back to England: notably prawn cocktail and salt and vinegar flavours for my Dutch husband who had quickly picked up a British crisp taste too.

Oxo Beef Stock Cubes were also a standard part of my expat shopping list - there was something about the way they crumble, which Dutch stock 'rectangles' don't do. And of course the nostalgia of Lynda Bellingham as the Oxo mum during the 1980s. There's that too.

Food when you are an expat takes on a whole new meaning. It's not just a stock cube, a bag of crisps or a stick of chocolate - it's a short trip down memory lane, a few fleeting seconds back in your childhood, a comforting reminder of a country you no longer live in.

All readers of Expat Life with a Double Buggy can claim £15 off their first order with the British Corner Shop on orders over £75 up until the 28th February 2016 using the discount code:

 BUGGYBCS15 

Nobody Told Me Culture Shock Could Be So Debilitating

In September I will have been here in the Netherlands for fifteen years. Fifteen years. That's no mean feat, even if I do say so myself.

These days I struggle with my identity on an almost daily basis - I'm stuck somewhere in the middle between learning to be Dutch and naturally being British. It's a different struggle than the one I faced fifteen years ago.

I fell in love with a Dutchman, lost my job in England and decided the time was right for a change. When my then boyfriend said come live a Dutch life with me I didn't hesitate. I stopped my job search, sold my flat and packed up all my belongings in a borrowed police trailer.  Easy peasy. I became an expat - just like that.

5 Expat Life Lessons From 'Global Mom'

Melissa Dalton-Bradford has lived in more countries than most of us would even dare to think about moving to - eight to be precise, and has had twice as many addresses. Her memoir, Global Mom, published by Familius, starts in Paris with a beautiful pine Norwegian table that proves to be a family anchor during twenty years on the move, two decades during which her family grows, as does Melissa, as am individual, a wife and as a mother.

From a typical Norwegian barnepark (a word and a concept I will never forget) to desperate poverty on Tonle Sap Lake in Singapore, Dalton-Bradford takes us on an unforgettable journey.

Global Mom is the story of one family physically moving from one country to another, about Dalton-Bradford's journey as a mother, about how a family grows and moulds together. It's a book about community and about home. It's about thriving with no roots. It's about loss and living and surviving in the frightening, dark land of grief. And it's about everything in-between.

(Amazon UK link)

Here are five life lessons I took away from reading Global Mom:

1. Expats Need to Adapt to Thrive 

What resonated with me more than anything else was the fact that living overseas is a story of adaptation. Dalton-Bradford illustrates beautifully that thriving abroad is about resilience, about going with the host country flow. It's about accepting an alternative culture, learning the local language, and fitting in as best you can - embracing the local way of life rather than shunning it and trying to live like you would in your base country.

This is no better highlighted than when Melissa's family move from Norway to France. From a Norwegian barnepark where a child's independence is a priority, where people co-exist with the dominating force of Mother Nature and where no-nonsense and practical goes above appearance, the Bradford family suddenly finds themselves immersed in a school system where restrictions, bureaucracy, rules, regulations and traditions are everything, where the imperfect loops a child makes when learning to write is cause for more teacher concern than it should be.

A fiery Norwegian winter dawn - where Mother Nature rules
Photo Credit: Grethe Boe

Melissa's experiences of child birth in the two countries also serve as a mirror for the contrast between the Norwegian lifestyle and the French way of doing things. Describing her natural birth in Norway with the assistance of her earth mother to her French friends made them "slap their foreheads and drag their hands over their eyes in disbelief" she recounts.

"Those poor Nordic women are too naive to know they have modern options. Right?" said one French friend.

Two worlds - set apart by culture, yet the Bradford family adapt to both, Paris in fact transforming into a haven for the family, a place they could later picture themselves permanently living.

2. Living Globally is Not Easy

To be able to travel around the world and set up home in several countries, to live globally, is an honour. However, it is no bed of roses when a family has to pack up and relocate time after time. Melissa sums it up wonderfully (P168),

"Every time I built something - established myself and our family in Norway, penetrated Versailles with my children in local activities, or renovated our first home ever and buttressed and held up my children - in the very instant I'd gotten to that spot, this international job track levelled what I'd built."

Saying goodbye to friends that have accumulated over the years, feeling rootless, the stress of organising a move and re-establishing a life. Melissa dealt with stress-induced depression on more than one occasion. A global life is about falling and then picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and trying all over again.

3. Retaining Your Personal Identity Needs Work

A life on the move means putting a tremendous amount of energy into setting up the day to day every few years - and then building on those foundations. As a mother of three, Melissa was busy setting up a home, helping her children establish themselves, emotionally and physically, getting the practical things organised in each new country they moved to. She orchestrated re-building a life from the ground up with every new address; she was the driving force behind reshaping their lives to adapt to their new surroundings.

That takes a lot out of a person, but Melissa, once the basics were in place, learnt to look after herself too. Eventually. She reached out to those around her, busied herself with the local church community, continued with her singing where she could (having left a stage career behind in the US when the family first moved overseas). She embraced her musical talents wherever she lived, and used them to build up a community around her. Melissa put herself out there, even when she didn't have the heart or energy to do so. And by doing so it felt whilst reading that she retained her identity - albeit reshaped and adapted. 'Be true to yourself' I hear her whisper from the pages of her memoir.

4. We Make a Home Wherever We Go

A home is more than bricks and mortar
Photo Credit: vannmarie

Melissa reminds me, in a poetic way, that the extraordinary lies in the ordinary. She reminds us how important it is to appreciate the beauty of where we are at this point in our lives. The memorable moments of life lie in our struggles to get through the day to day, particularly when you are doing it in in an unknown culture, in a foreign tongue, in a country you don't know well.

And every time we leave a place we take a little of that place with us, and we leave our mark on the place we left. 'Global Mom' reminds us that home is a place we create in the most unexpected of circumstances. It is so much more than the bricks and mortar that give us a place to shelter. Home is about family, about people, about cultures and history, about traditions - about coming together to grow and learn. Home is the place we are surrounded by those we love, no matter where on the globe that physical address may be.

5. Tragedy Takes You to a New Land

When a family tragedy strikes it takes you to a new unchartered land, to the land of grief. Once entered, life is never the same again. This book is not a light read, it is heartbreaking. You will cry, but it is an integral part of the journey that this beautifully written memoir takes the reader on. It is a brave and courageous account of a mother's loss, of a family torn apart.

Melissa tells us how grieving whilst on the move means travelling on a lonely road - surrounded by new faces that do not know or understand what you have been through, who did not live through your life stopping tragedy with you. The grieving process knows even more complications because of a life lived in different countries. The memories are based elsewhere, the connections to your loss in another country.

"The nomadic lifestyle, with all its pluses has one glaring lacuna: community. You are again and again ripped up, ripped out, and replanted amid strangers. There is little if any continuous community. Now, as never before in our life. our family needed people who had more than a vague inkling of our story....." (P236 Global Mom)

To end, for me,  'Global Mom' is how you write a memoir. It is set apart by the weight it carries, by the emotions it instills in the reader - from smirks and giggles to floods of tears.

There is a sense of history, culture, and a feeling of the sights and sounds of every country the Bradford family lives in. There is the reality check that a nomadic lifestyle is a double edged sword, and a life lived well overseas takes work, emotional resilience and a lot of adapting. There is friendship, community, family and most of all, love.

This book is a great read for expats, wannabe expats, global nomads, parents and those with a curiosity for the power of the human spirit.

You can get a copy of Global Mom from the following outlets:

Expat Life Means Throwing Your Plans Out the Window

It won't be news to anyone but life doesn't always turn out like you expect it to. If someone had told my seventeen year old self that I would end up living in the Netherlands with a Dutch husband and three children who are way more Dutch than they ever will be British, I would never have believed them. I would have been intrigued, but convinced? I don't think so.

Whilst I was making plans for my future, fresh out of university with a degree in European Studies, someone, somewhere was sniggering saying, "Well, I doubt you'll be needing any of that - maybe you should have tried learning Dutch. That's a language you will be using daily when you are 27." But how was I to know?

Expat life is planned for some, it sneaks up on others. Either way, it probably means life as you envisioned it doesn't quite become a reality. Expat life changes things - and sometimes that means a huge adjustment. Expat life can throw a spanner in the works. All the things you imagined for yourself in life can turn out so differently, in the blink of an expat eye.

It's a feeling I touched upon in a chapter I wrote about my Dutch wedding in the Dutched Up!: Rocking the Clogs Expat Style anthology. I had visions when I was younger of me trying on wedding dresses with my best friend at my side. I always figured my mother would also be a part of that build up to my wedding day. Together we'd be sipping bubbly while trawling through a range of dresses to find the perfect one for my big day.

My final choice of wedding dress

The reality was very different. Both my best friend and my mother were in England and I was here in the Netherlands. I actually put off looking for a dress for a while, and I guess it should have been one of the first things on my mind. At the time it wasn't a conscious decision to keep putting the visit to the bridal shop off, but looking back, I understand why I was more reluctant than I should have been to try wedding dresses on. It's the little things that suddenly slap you in the face and make you realise that expat life means sacrificing some things to gain others.

Having my first child was another reminder of how expat life changes things. In a non-expat life I had visions of my mother waiting outside the delivery room, eager to see her grandchild. I guess I figured I would have her to lean on, as the voice of experience, whilst I was pregnant in a different country. The reality was a million miles from the ideal. If I look back now I can't say whether there would have been more interest in my children from my mother had I not left England. It's a question I will never have the answer to, but I do know that my expat life changed our relationship for the worse. And I can't change that.

When you opt for an expat life things change. It is inevitable. I wouldn't change my decision to move overseas for all the tea in China, or all the fish 'n' chips back in England. But maybe, I could have been more prepared for the changes that expat life brings about. I don't mean the daily, practical things; I had envisaged those. I mean how expat life changes how the little things turn out, how it challenges the plans and visions you had for yourself, how it strains relationships with those left behind. How it puts turns in the road you hadn't seen coming.

To thrive as an expat I've needed to throw everything I saw for my future self out the window, and start with a clean slate. Make my plans from scratch. I've had to deal with the unexpected, and recover from being blindsided many times. Expat life means a pay off. That is the only certainty.

But I'm glad I've had the chance to find my way through my expat life. The journey was worth it.

Expat Life: Changed from the Inside Out

 I am sure I could not find a quote that more accurately sums up the effect that expat life has had on me. 

Of course I am still me, but the girl that left England in fourteen years ago seems like a stranger now, confined to history. I wouldn't recognise that girl from pre-expat life if I bumped into her in the street today. 

Of course I am still me, but my daily life has altered in more ways than I could even begin to count. Consequently who I am has changed too. In more ways than I can count. 

Every day I communicate in language that is not my own. I have been through culture shock and come out the other side relatively unscathed but certainly changed. 

Expat life paved the way to a new career. One I could have only dreamed about a lifetime ago, living in my birth country.

Things that were alien to me more than a decade ago are today a 'normal' part of my daily life. 

I sometimes find it hard to imagine there was a time I wasn't an expat. Life before becoming an expat seems so long ago, so hazy and blurred. So unreal almost.

My new home has changed me, changed how I see things, changed how I think and feel about things. It has changed my daily life. It has changed me from the inside out. To the marrow of my bones.

How have you been changed by expat life? Have you been changed to the "marrow of your bones" by moving overseas?

This post has been adapted from a post originally published on A Letter from the Netherlands.

5 Ways Expat Life is Like Moving into Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey aka Highclere Castle
Photo Credit: Darren Deans

I'm currently watching the latest series of Downton Abbey, sneaking in an episode here and there after the children's bedtime routine is finished. It struck me watching Tom Branson, the chauffeur who marries into the aristocratic Crawley family,  and his eternal and internal struggles to fit in with his in-laws, that expat life is a similar experience. Here's how.

1. Thinking Before Speaking
Tom speaks English, but not the same English as his mother and father in-law, Lord and Lady Grantham and their offspring. He needs to mind his p's and q's, think about his word use and his inflection. Like us expats, he needs to think about everything that comes out of his mouth if he doesn't want to stand out, make a show of himself or make himself a target of ridicule. When you live life in a foreign language you truly know how it is to think before you speak.

2. Testing Beliefs
An Irish socialist in the ranks of the English aristocracy is hardly a match made in heaven. He desperately wants to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, is anti-British establishment and holds left wing, republican ideologies. However, his survival at Downton means watering down his own beliefs and political opinions, or at least how he expresses his views. He learns over time to keep his mouth firmly closed or risk stirring up animosity, putting his wife in the middle of unwanted family conflict. He has to learn to balance his political views and Sybil's happiness. In his own words,

"Sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having."

Many expats find their belief or ethics systems or values tested to breaking point when they move to a new country. The status quo in a foreign country often presents a personal or cultural conundrum. Ideologies, political beliefs, religious views and freedoms differ across the world and expats have to learn to thrive in the face of internally conflicting or unfamiliar laws or norms, even when it goes against everything they believe in.

3. Making New Friends
Tom finds himself in a completely new social circle, one forced upon him by his new status marrying in to Downton Abbey's well-to-do family. They are not people he would normally be dining and exchanging pleasantries with. And so it is too with expats, thrust into a new social circle by default because of a new expat location. Expats often find themselves in a room filled with people they wouldn't necessarily be socialising with in 'real life'. They reach out to people they wouldn't be friends with back on home turf.

Downton's Formal Dining Setting - the Scene for Many a
Discussion on Tom's Evening Attire
Photo Credit: Rachelle Lucas Flickr Creative Commons

4. Adapting to a New Culture
Tom was raised in a different world to that of his wife, Lady Sybil, and her family. He came to Downton Abbey as a chauffeur and we can safely assume there were no maids, butlers or footmen attending in his family home growing up. His background could not be more different than the world of formal dinner jackets, hunting and cricket that he enters when he marries Lady Sybil.

Daily, across the globe, expats find themselves living in an unfamiliar world to the one they grew up in, entirely different to their passport country or the one they were raised in. It means learning how things should be done, learning how others do things and adapting to a new way of living. Just like Tom, who after stoically refusing to conform to formal dinner attire for a long while, eventually gives in so that his attire ceases to be a topic of discussion. He also learns how to play cricket in order to keep his father-in-law happy and make up the numbers on the house team. He adapts to his environment, just as we expats do.

5. Staying True to Ourselves
Despite the changes that Tom goes through in order to fit in to his new home and life, he remains true to himself. He remarks to Matthew on one occasion that even if he learns cricket, goes fishing and hunting,

"I'll still be an Irish mick in my heart."

Tom carves his own role in the household, becomes an accepted, valuable, member of the Downton Abbey household despite feeling in his heart that he doesn't truly belong to the family nor any longer has much in common with the staff he used to serve the family alongside with. He makes himself essential nonetheless as manager of the Downton estate. He adapts, changes and makes a new life for himself, one he could never have imagined when he first arrived at Downton Abbey as a chauffeur.

And so it is with expat life. It changes us, in ways we could never imagine. We learn to adapt to our surroundings, to the people we live with, live with a new culture, a novel way of doing things, learn a new way to live our life. And that is true if we move to Downton Abbey or to a little unknown town in the Netherlands. In the words of Mr Carson, Downton's very loveable butler,

"What would be the point of living if we didn't let life change us?"

What indeed.

Expat Bloggers Link Up: My Reverse Expat Bucket List

I have had two massive nudges in the last week to acknowledge my expat achievements and appreciate just how far I have come since I moved to the Netherlands in 2000.

Firstly Jessica de Rooij posted this comment on a recent post about the things I have learnt from the Dutch,

"Today I had this thought that I wanted to compliment all expat mamas because you must be very skilled to live in a foreign country: be an expat, mama and happy at the same time. Takes a huge effort."

Living overseas is indeed not as easy as it may seem to inexperienced non-traveled eyes.  Doing it as a parent throws up its challenges too - after all I am raising three children in a country that I did not grow up in. My childhood was spent in a different culture to the one my children are growing up in. My sons have Dutch nationality and speak Dutch as their first language. It is not a scenario I ever imagined whilst I was doing my growing up in Britain. And yet here I am. An expat. A mama. Happy. Thank you Jessica for a lovely reminder that expat parenting takes skill and effort.

My second nudge came in the form of a tweet I saw about The Reverse Bucket by Erika from America. Instead of dwelling on all the things she hasn't done, she compiled a list of all the things she has done. I love the idea. It is so easy to focus on what you haven't yet achieved and forget the victories and experiences you already have under your belt. Particularly when you have replanted yourself in a new country and have made/are making a new life for yourself.

A recent post I wrote about the 10 hard lessons I have learnt on the way to a happy life abroad resonated with many expats (it is by far my most read post, and with 1.9k Facebook likes as I write the most popular by a mile) and also made me stop and realise how far I have come since those early newbie expat days when I made the jump over the North Sea to the Netherlands. In other words my reverse expat bucket list should be huge. And so should yours.

And so it struck me that we expats should shout about our accomplishments. And the idea for another expat bloggers link up was born: My Reverse Expat Bucket List. On Thursday 17th April I will publish my post listing the things that I have achieved as an expat, the top experiences that I have gained since moving overseas - and I invite you to do the same and link up. You can write as short or long a list as you like, you can focus on one major accomplishment, you can list 200 - there are no rules except that you should shout as loud as you can about the amazing things you have done as an expat. Are you in?

Thoughts of Home: Banishing the Expat Blues

It's been a long time since I suffered the expat blues, the REAL expat blues, that point when life sucks, nothing is as good as it is back 'home', and you wonder what the hell you have gotten yourself in to. When I say a long time, I mean years. At least eight. But there were five years before that which were at times tough. 

 

I remember the countless times, driving on the M25 around London, leaving from my mum's or my dad's house back to one ferry port or another, feeling dismal. Feeling like it wouldn't take much to make me ask my Dutch partner to stop the car and let me out. It wouldn't take much to run in the opposite direction from the port. Tears would stream. Leaving again every time I went back to England was the hardest thing I had to do. But I kept doing it. 

And eventually, as life got easier and more comfortable in the Netherlands, leaving England each time got easier. Instead of feeling like I was leaving home to go back to 'the Netherlands' it started to feel like I was leaving England to go back home. Each boat or plan trip took me home, instead of merely taking me away from my family and friends, from everything familiar. 

And now, more than thirteen years after leaving England, I find it hard to imagine living back there. I would miss the Netherlands. I would miss my Dutch life. 

But that doesn't mean I don't miss things from my previous life, my British life. The obvious is family and friends - that is something that doesn't fade, but I have got to a state of acceptance. My best friend no longer lives in England, she too leads an expat life, so there are no guarantees, no matter where you live, that you'll be close to loved ones. People move. Things change. Expats know that better than anyone. 

I still miss the sight of miles of green, rolling hills. Sometimes, I miss being able to think in my mother tongue. I miss understanding why things are the way they are, I miss having the historical cultural knowledge to understand a bit more about why people do what they do. The culture in the Netherlands is not mine. I didn't live here through previous decades to know why things have evolved as they have - it's like taking a test on something you never studied. But I'm learning. I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to integrate as far as I can. And in doing so, I seem to have banished those expat blues for good. It doesn't mean I never miss some things in England, but I don't see it as home anymore. The Netherlands is my home. It's a mindset change.

Here are three tips to help deal with those expat blues, (all of which involve a lot of embracing):

1. Explore and Integrate

If you are an expat for the long haul get out and explore locally, and then make that circle of exploration wider. Join groups near you, both expat and local ones so you can meet others. Learn the local language. Get to know more about the local culture, even when the same language is spoken as back home there will always be other things that are vastly different - learn to recognise them and understand them so that you can in time accept them.

2. Embrace the Curve

There is no getting away from it, expat life can be rough. You will go through a huge emotional roller coaster curve when you move overseas. The first few days or weeks is the honeymoon period, you see everything through rose coloured spectacles. And then it hits, everything is different, nothing is familiar, this is NOT home. Culture shock hits. And then you'll slowly crawl your way up the curve again. Your curve maybe U shaped, it may be W shaped, but it's an inevitable process and you need to be tough. Embrace the curve, cuddle it, make it your friend. If you accept that what you are going through is perfectly normal, and that there is light at the end of the tunnel, then it makes those expat blues much easier to deal with. The mantra you should hum through the first four to twelve months after moving abroad should be "temporary, this is only temporary, life will get easier". And I promise it will. You can read a lovely example of what I mean here, written by "I Was an Expat Wife".

3. Embrace Change 

It's hard, but accepting that the only thing you can be sure of is that everything will be different will make life overseas easier. I am convinced that accepting change, and subsequently adapting to it, is what makes one expat more successful than another. It's a topic I plan to write much more about but as a summary, Aisha Ashraf puts it so beautifully in her post "Expats are Born, Not Made Discuss:

"Aspects of life in a new location may initially seem alien, even ill advised, but looking beyond pre-conceived ideas and striving to understand them is what marks out the successful expat from those ‘doing time’ abroad."

 So here's my best tip - when you move overseas, start by making the vow not to do time abroad, but to live your life abroad!

This is a link up with The Move to America as part of The Expat Experience series about missing home or suffering from the expat blues.

Freeze The Day

Suddenly summer seems to have slipped by like a passing whisper, leaves are fluttering from the trees and landing softly at our feet as we go about our daily business, pepernoten line the supermarket shelves and the endless debates about Zwarte Piet begin once more, blogs are awash with pumpkins and Halloween and there are tweets galore counting down the shopping days until Christmas. 

It struck me last week as I watched my youngest turn two that time really is slipping by so fast. I found myself wanting to freeze the day. 

To pay attention to every little detail of my day. To not grow impatient during the morning battle to get three children out the door for the school run but cherish the stolen hugs between doing buttons and laces up. 

Photo Credit:T Rolf

To take my son's hand when he offers it on the way to the shops and cherish the warmth and innocence of that gesture. 

To not be preoccupied by Facebook whilst my three sons build a zoo with Duplo but to get down on the ground with them and help them with their masterpiece. 

To fully understand the depth of emotion behind a playground tussle and not wipe away the tears from my son's face and move on to the next job waiting for me. 

To commit the picture of my son cuddling with his favourite rabbit for comfort to memory.

To laugh with my children as they splash around at bath time and not scold for making puddles on the bathroom floor. 

To fully immerse myself in their bedtime story and not see it as a chore off the list when the evening is hectic. 

I suddenly wanted to capture the madness that is life with three young children, because as each day passes something is lost that I will never get back.

One day they won't want a bedtime story from me. One day doing up laces and buttons will be something my children do themselves on automatic pilot setting. One day they'll walk themselves to school. One day they'll refuse to hold my hand in public. One day I'll be fighting with them to take a shower, and the idea of splashing in the fun of a bubbly bath will be a distant memory. One day their favourite cuddly toy will sit forgotten on a shelf in a cupboard, filled with holes and split seams from years of dragging and holding. One day the Duplo and the Lego will be put away for good, bundled up for for other people's children to play with. One day my sons won't shed tears so openly. 

But until those days come, I am learning that every now and then I need to freeze the day we're in. Freeze the moment. Cherish it. Notice the passing moments. Suck in all the magical details. Realise what is left behind as each day turns into the next. My children will never be the same tomorrow as they were today. 

Nobody sums this feeling up better than Gretchen Rubin - two minutes of pure parenting emotion

Understanding Highly Sensitive Children

Our parenting theme of 2013 so far surely has to be 'authentic', being true to who we are and letting our children be who they are. We refuse to mould them into the right shaped peg to fit the holes that others create because it is easier.

HSCs are often creative and artistic
Photo: Robin Hindle

We have been in a long battle dialogue with my eldest son's primary school about highly sensitive children and their needs in the classroom. My six year old is a highly sensitive child (HSC) which is an amazing character trait to have. HSCs grow up to be the artists, the musicians, the peacemakers amongst us. They have an affinity to the natural world, to animals and living, growing things. They are conscientious (there is a reduced chance that I will spend time nagging my son to do his homework in later years) and have an innate sense of justice and right and wrong. They are creative. They are emotionally tuned into the world around them. They are intuitive. They are incredibly affectionate, caring and loving as well as wise for their years. But it also means their heads fill up quickly, especially in busy or new environments.

The first hurdle for many parents of HSCs usually involves overcoming a lack of knowledge, understanding or interest in the idea of highly sensitive people (HSP). Being highly sensitive does not mean there is something wrong. It is not an illness or a disorder, nor is it a behavioural problem.  But most HSCs have a specific instruction manual. And we all know that if you make an expensive technological purchase and try to operate it without the instruction manual you are asking for problems. Either you don't understand half of the functions so are not able to get the best out of your equipment or worst still you may even do damage to your purchase. And so it is with a HSC.

A HSC is in essence one of the 20% of children that intensely experiences the environment around them. The senses of an HSC are easily overloaded: cooking smells can be unpleasant to the keen nose of a HSC; the feel of sand on a HSC's hands can be distinctly uncomfortable; a wet sleeve can lead to a drama; loud noises can be intensely frightening; a scratchy label on a new T-shirt can be highly irritating. A highly sensitive toddler can therefore come across as an extremely fussy child, whereas in reality he genuinely experiences physical discomfort.

And physical sensory overload is just the tip of the iceberg - that sensitivity that we can actually easily see if we care to look close enough. Look below the surface of an HSC and there are pools of emotion of a depth well beyond a child's years. They feel the emotions in a room: they know when a parent is unhappy or a teacher is feeling below par; they read through the words spoken to the meaning behind them and quickly sense when the two don't match. They are good readers of people and are alarmingly capable of taking on the emotions of others around them, taking on the burden of another's problems as if they were their own. It's a lot of responsibility to take on, particularly for those so young.

The majority of HSCs are introverts (30% are not) who are often labelled as shy or fearful. HSCs scan and observe before they participate. They are more cautious about tackling the climbing frame in the playground or jumping from the bench in the gym. They are very unsure of new environments and new people. They are the toddlers clinging to their mothers' legs and refusing to play with the others at the mother and toddler group, the children screaming the new classroom down on the first day of pre-school and the children reluctant to start at primary school. They need to know it is safe before they take action. They need time to warm up to places and people. It's about self preservation and trust.

Perfectionism is also a trait of HSCs. If something they work on is not perfect in their eyes they feel like a failure. They are upset by their perceived lack of ability to complete the task to their high standards. However, to put 110% into everything you do to get it to a 'perfect' state is mentally and physically exhausting.

For a HSC a classroom can be overwhelming
Photo: Elias Minasi

Transfer all of this to the classroom and you hopefully have an idea of how a HSC feels at the end of the school day. Therefore HSCs need a lot of downtime. They are the children you often find spending long periods of time alone in their bedrooms. They need time to clear their head out after a busy day. They need a break during the school day to give everything they have experienced a place. They need quiet time.

20% of the population is highly sensitive. HSCs grow in to highly sensitive adults. It's something I know firsthand - oh did I not mention that high sensitivity is a hereditary trait? It's an inborn character.

The degrees of sensitivity are as varied as children themselves. As children grow older some sensitivities disappear, some are managed better and some sensitivities are unfortunately suppressed because they don't fit with the demands of modern society (the consequences of which are anxiety and depression and a lack of authenticity but that's a whole other blog post in the making).

However sensitivity manifests itself the first step for the parent of a HSC is usually to educate those around them. Hence this blog post. I, hand in hand with my husband, have spent the last eighteen months trying to educate my son's educators about what he needs to thrive in a busy classroom. Our attempts have fallen on deaf ears. Fortunately every other person in my son's world so far does understand. And, more importantly, they accept my son for who he is. They allow him to be authentic, and don't require him to change to fit in with them. Which is lucky, because we have another two sons who have shown signs to a lesser degree of being HSCs. And thank goodness - because the world sure is a better place with HSPs in it!

Do you know a HSC? Are you the parent of a HSC? I would love to hear from others who have had similar experiences as a parent.

If anything is this blog post rings bells for you check out Elaine Aron's website for more information on the is topic, as well as a check list of HSC traits to help you determine if your child(ren) is(are) in fact HSCs.

11 July 2013: As of today I have created a Facebook group called "Happy Sensitive Kids" for anyone who is involved in raising HSCs. My goal is to create a supportive, safe place to share tips, experiences, challenges and the joys of bringing up HSCs. It's a closed group so you need to request membership but it also means that the posts can only be seen my members.