My Reverse Expat Bucket List

Instead of keeping track of all the things I still want to do in life, I loved Erika from America's idea of capturing all the experiences and achievements that she has already been fortunate enough to have.

And as a contra to some of the most recent posts I have written about the tougher aspects of expat life, I thought it would be nice to dwell on all the great things I have done, seen and achieved because of my expat life.

You can read more about how this idea evolved here. But I don't want to just throw my reverse expat bucket list out there - I want to read yours too, hence the idea of a blogging link up. You can find the link up button and a picture you can use at the end of this post.

So here goes. This is my reverse bucket list made possible because I became an expat and moved to the Netherlands.

1. Be a mama to three beautiful Dutch boys
2. Abandon your comfort zone and take a huge risk
3. Expand your world
4. Fit all your worldly possessions into a borrowed police trailer and take it from England to the Netherlands to make a new life
5. Marry a Dutchman
6. Get married at a mill (even if it is water and not wind)
7. Live daily life in a second language
8. Go through the classic culture shock curve and come out smiling
9. Adapt to a new culture
10. Appreciate your British culture
11. Learn what is important in life by watching the Dutch masters of work life balance
12. Have Dutch people speak Dutch back to you when you speak Dutch to them
13. Have three bilingual children
14. Have three dual nationality children
15. Bring three children up in two cultures
16. Visit four countries in one day 
17. Find three ways to travel from the Netherlands to England
18. Take a high speed train to Paris
19. Visit a Christmas market in Germany
20. Drive to Denmark and visit Legoland
21. Drive to Euro Disney
22. Visit Movie World in Germany by car
23. Visit Muiderslot
24. Visit Keukenhof at its most beautiful 
25. See the Dutch flower fields up close and personal
26. Visit the Zaanse Schans
27. View the Netherlands from above in a very, very small plane.
    
    Fly it yourself for seven seconds before you freak out and give the control back to an experienced pilot
28. Have a family photo session outside the Dutch parliament
29. Get back on a bicycle after a twenty year abstention
30. Plan for a home birth
31. Plan to give birth without pain relief
32. Have three children born in a Dutch hospital
33. Welcome kraamzorg in to your home three times and realise just how lucky you are to have postnatal help
34. Own a home abroad
35. Cook a Dutch meal
36. Eat a sweet pancake and call it dinner, not pudding
37. Eat speculoos with abandonment
38. Eat an orange tompouce
39. Eat Indonesian food
40. Renovate an old worker's house in The Hague
41. Understand the terms and conditions of your mortgage written solely in Dutch
42. Watch The Bridge spoken in original language with Dutch subtitles and understand what is going on
43. Watch Borgen in Danish with Dutch subtitles and totally get it
44. Watch a Dutch film and actually laugh at the funny bits
45. Watch a musical in Dutch and sing along - quietly
46. Read a book you are not familiar with in Dutch and be able to follow the plot
47. Listen to Dutch music
48. See Dutch musicians in concert and sing along - quietly
49. Meet inspirational people from all corners of the world, including from countries you barely knew the existence 
50. Love the diversity of culture in your life
51. Make Dutch friends
52. Be brave and quite your job in the corporate world and start a career you are passionate about, one that makes your heart sing 
53. Take a distance learning course in journalism
54. Start a blog about expat life
55. Write expat articles
56. Write for Smitten by Britain
57. Have an idea for a book
58. Interview the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest from both the north and south sides
59. Celebrate Queen's Night in The Hague
60. Celebrate Queen's Day in Amsterdam
61. Celebrate Sinterklaas
62. Celebrate new year's eve in the Netherlands
63. See a Chinese New Year celebration in The Hague
64. Celebrate Bonfire Night in Amsterdam
65. See the preparations made for a Nuclear Security Summit
66. Stand two feet away from the Dutch Prime Minister
67. Stand so close to a Dutch Crown Prince you could almost touch him, a risk not worth taking because of the inconspicuous security he has near him
68. See behind the scenes at a Dutch hospital
69. Get whisked away to hospital in a Dutch ambulance
70. Go on natural ice - a frozen pond or canal
71. Hang a birthday calendar in the smallest room of your house instead of writing birthdays out year after year
72. Learn it is better to pay to use a clean toilet than to visit a dirty one for free
73. Use a cheese slicer without losing a finger, or a part thereof
74. Go to a Dutch birthday circle and survive to tell the tale
75. Watch a football tournament with English and Dutch teams in the Amsterdam Arena 
76. See a football team you care about make it to the World Cup Final
77. Help out in a Dutch classroom for a morning and be proud that the children actually know what you are saying to them in Dutch
78. See Bruce Springsteen in concert in Feyenoord's stadium

<div align="center">
<a href="http://lifewithadoublebuggy.blogspot.nl" title="Expat Life with a Double Buggy"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0N6ik1LnF-b7CpjdqQ8Yn8g85ywT1Czd8tSzxer-Z80tW2UfPEFjOZhEVBWNMxbLsD2eOvaG8y9WqvG_ddeeXi6YSRDvtv1yvFJ1C3LHosBfoOfQk2OQiP6fMGDX_pBAKihGZfcLM3Y/s1600/ELWADB+LinkUp.JPG" alt="Expat Life with a Double Buggy" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

A Strange Begin: Sleepless Nights and An Ambulance,

Photo: (c) The Writing Well

When my youngest son (our third) was born last October, the kraamweek (the week after the birth) didn't quite go as planned. We came back from the hospital on a Friday morning and our interim kraamzorg was stood at our front door to meet us. The first day home went as planned. Lots of rest, help, and time for my eldest two sons to meet their new brother.

The night however was a different story. Our new addition cried a lot at night. By that I mean unless he was being held upright he was crying. As soon as we laid him down his eyes sprung open and he began to scream. That meant, with labour and the birth included, I hadn't slept at all for three nights. I was a little tired to say the least.

Saturday night was a repeat of the night before. Four nights without sleep.

Then on Sunday morning I felt a little strange. It felt as if I was on the verge of slipping away into a dreamland, whilst lying in my kraambed. My kraamzorg (a trainee) came to bring me breakfast, was shocked by how I looked and flew back down the stairs to alert the experienced kraamzorg that all was not well upstairs. They both came charging back upstairs. I was conscious of everything that was going on around me but could not respond. No words came out, my head wouldn't move. My blood pressure was high and I had what I can best describe as the shakes. The kraamzorg called the midwife, who arrived quickly but then struggled to get an accurate blood pressure reading. Due to my unresponsiveness she called an ambulance, informing them not to come with sirens and lights.

A few minutes later I heard a siren getting louder and louder and my insides curdled. My eyes told those in the room that I was horrified with the arrival of an ambulance with "bells and tooters" blazing.

The next fifteen minutes were amongst the strangest of my life. Two ambulance personnel, a male and a female, began loading equipment on the bed. The room was a hive of activity with 2 maternity nurses, a midwife and my family milling around trying to help and get a grip on the situation.

After tests and questions the decision was made to take me to hospital in the ambulance, back to the maternity ward for checks. One of the ambulance crew said it seemed like I had gone in to shock. A birth and four nights with no sleep seemed a viable reason for this....

Somewhere amid the commotion I began to return to the land of the living and could communicate once more.

And so I made it downstairs with help from the ambulance personnel and my husband, and I was loaded on to a stretcher outside our house. Which is when I noticed that the arrival of the ambulance had attracted a sea of onlookers in the street and surrounding houses...... My husband took the baby in the car, as he would stay with me in the maternity ward to ensure that the breastfeeding could continue. My eldest sons stayed with kraamzorg until friends got there to look after them. It was chaotic, upsetting and stressful - for us all.

It was only the second time I had ever been in an ambulance. The first time was to accompany my brother when he had a serious asthma attack when we were out in Watford, England one night. It was certainly the first time I had ever been in a Dutch ambulance. By the time we were driving to the hospital I was compos mentis again, and well aware of the drama of the past half an hour, hour - who knows how much time had passed.

Photo: Pam Roth

Once we arrived at the ambulance entrance of the hospital we seemed to whizz through corridors, past a sea of faces waiting their turn in queues in various departments, until we arrived in the maternity ward. Familiar faces came to help me from the stretcher to a bed and started hooking me up to an array of machines.

Lots of tests ensued from a gynaecologist and a neurologist and I had a few more 'attacks' like I had had that morning. The result was that I had to stay overnight in the hospital. I was devastated - it wasn't how the kraamweek was supposed to be! The kraamweek following the births of my first two sons are etched on my mind as wonderful weeks, a treasure trove of precious moments. And this time I ended up separated from the rest of my family, my husband home worried sick looking after our eldest sons who didn't understand anything that had happened, and me unable to properly care for my newborn.

Aside from a near collapse (luckily a nurse was holding on to me) walking back from the bathroom, the night passed without incident and the next morning I was allowed to return home. Kraamzorg returned. The kraamweek recommenced. The rest of the week passed without incident, but the sleepless nights continued.  So we turned to an osteopath.

He diagnosed our little one as suffering from silent reflux. He was having a rough time of it, hence the sleepless nights. I'd like to say that we got referred to the paediatrician, given medicine and all was well but the reality is that we struggled at night for many months and have only really had peace at night during the last month.

We've come through the other end - and the most amazing thing about all this is that our youngest son is a smiley, giggly, happy little boy - despite the less than easy start in this world.

Photo: (c) The Writing Well

You Know You're An Expat Parent in the Netherlands When...

Being a parent abroad means facing situations that you probably wouldn't face if you had stayed in the country you were born in. Being an expat parent means adapting...... Here are twenty things that make me realise I'm a Brit parenting in the Netherlands.

1. You actually consider a home birth as a viable option.
2. You think you can give birth without the help of pain relief.
3. The whole idea of a maternity nurse spending a week in your home directly after the birth of your child is inconceivable. You reluctantly commit to her coming a few hours a day (half of your entitlement) but make sure everyone knows you are giving in begrudgingly. When your second is born you sign up for your full entitlement and dream up elaborate ways to get more hours out of your maternity nurse.
4. When the well-baby clinic recommends your child eats six slices of bread a day you involuntarily take in a sharp breath.
5. Your three year old speaks Dutch better than you do. 
6. Your five year old actually corrects you when you speak Dutch.
7. You are floored by the way your toddler can roll their "r's" and say "Scheveningen".
8. You're amazed because there is no complicated school enrolment system* for your children. You fill in an application form and the school informs you within a week or two if they have a space for your child or not. You can't believe it can be that simple.
9. When your child starts school you have no idea how the school system works because it's not the same as the one you grew up in. 
10. You cannot get to grips with the idea that eating in a pancake house is "going out for dinner" and still see those Dutch pancakes as eating dessert before the main meal.
11. You stop calling your GP for every minor ailment your kids get because you know the answer will be "Take paracetamol and if he's not okay in three days come back."
12. There is more paracetamol in your medicine cabinet at any one time than you would conceivably use in a year in your own country. What's more you have paracetamol for every possible age range and for every orifice and  - you're not afraid to use it.
13. Your kids cycle better and more than you do.
14. The phrase you use most whilst walking to and around the local playground is "Watch out for the dog poo. I said WATCH OUT! OK, you can clean that when we get home...."
15. Your children eat sprinkles on bread for breakfast.
16. Your child brings home a different friend book to fill in on a weekly basis. But of course your child cannot yet write so guess what you spend your weekends doing....
17. You wouldn't dream of driving to school. Instead, you join the masses and walk or cycle with your child to school.
18. You have an impressive array of attachments for your bike, including a bike trailer and child seats.
19. You race to the nearest lake when the temperature drops so that your children can wear their ice skates.
20. Your child has a tendency to find the idea of poo sandwiches hilarious. 

*except in Amsterdam.....

11. You don't call the GP....
Photo: Andrzej Gdula



What have I missed? What makes you realise you are parenting abroad, which ever country you are parenting in?

Parenting as an Expat: Here's Some I Made Earlier....

For a fair few years already I have been tackling the topics of motherhood, children, pregnancy and related challenges and issues. Throwing expats into the role of parents is interesting to say the least.

As a warm up for this blog, here's an overview of articles I have already written on the topic of parenthood, from pregnancy to children's TV in a foreign country:

• From Pregnancy to Delivery - The Dutch Way
• Having a Baby in the Netherlands - Understanding Kraamzorg
• 'Tis the Season to be Travelling
• It's Sesame Street - But Not as we Know it
• Kraamzorg - Postnatal Care in the Netherlands
• Classic Children's Television - Dutch Style
• Maternity Matters - What to Expect in the Netherlands
• A Little Help in the Delivery Room
• Don't Blame it on Home Births
• 6 Ways to Make Sure Your Summer Holiday Really is a Summer Holiday When You're An Expat
• My Consultatiebureau
• 5 Ways to Embrace a Dutch December