Travels with Toddler

To my daughters Teachers,

2016-08-26T08:38:00.001-07:00

To my daughters Teachers,

First, I would like to start off by apologizing for all of the times we are going to be late this year, because I have no doubt it's going to happen and for that I am sorry. But let me explain, see I once was the type of person who was chronically, annoyingly, ridiculously early for everything. Actually, I still am that person on the rare occurrence that I go somewhere by myself.

Please know this, I HATE being late! I feel being late is immensely rude and a sign of disrespect... but that was before I was a mommy. A mommy to lolly-gaggers, to day-dream dreamers, to stop-and-smell the roses kind of kids.

I have tried to hurry them. I have hustled and ordered and snapped demands upon them till I felt sick and they were in tears. I didn't want to offend you (or the system) by being late, but I have decide no more! See, if there is anything I hate more than being late it's yelling at my kids.

If we're late, we're late and the world will get over it. Years from now looking back you won't remember my child that was late, but years from now when my daughters look back they most certainly will remember the morning struggle... the yelling... and the tears. So I have consciously decided not to care about being late anymore, because I love my lolly-gaggers, my day-dream dreamers, my stop-and-smell the roses kids and I want them to look back and be happy.

So I am sorry. I will still try my best to get them there on time, and if I ever go somewhere by myself you can still count on me being annoyingly early, but from now on if my little ones need to pick a flower, or give that one last snuggle to their stuffed animals, or discover an "AMAZING" butterfly in the parking lot chances are we will be late.

Sincerely,

Mommy to lolly-gaggers and day-dreamer dreamers.

So FLOWERS!!!

2015-05-14T12:24:00.001-07:00

Today at the store as we walked past the fresh cut flowers my littlest Rew made a B-line for the brightly colored blooms and exclaimed "MOMMY wets get some fowers!"

I cringed and hardened myself for the battle to come and parried with "NO! No flowers. We have flowers at home still from Mother's Day."

The begging went on and quickly became big crocodile tear crying. I kept my cool and gently picked up my daughter and began to walk away from the flowers under the watchful, and what I was certain were judgemental yet approving eyes as I had not given into my child's whims and tantrums, of no less than 10 other shoppers.

We rounded the corner and I thought to myself "Well handled Mom! Well handled." To which my now surrendered 4 year old sobbed into my shoulder "But Mommee I wanted to buy does fowers for you to show you I wuv you so much."

So we have flowers...

I am such a sucker!

Mother's Day

2015-05-06T17:58:00.001-07:00

I wish that my mother were still alive.

Without her I feel like a poorly moored boat in a storm.

Left on this tumultuous sea to lash about on a single bow anchor.

Hit the road Toad!

2015-05-05T13:17:00.001-07:00

So last summer we found two tiny little baby toads. Thinking they would make great summertime pets I let the girls keep them in a little aquarium, decorated with water bowls in the shape of rocks and coconut shells to lounge under by day. We supplied them with all assortment of creepy crawlies to nibble, nay gulp down and as summer came to an end I was ready to liberate the toads!

The girls balked! They shouted and puppy-dog-eyed their way into keeping them through winter and I relented. After all they were ill-prepared to survive a winter having been plucked from the wild at such a tender young age.

As spring rolled around I began planting the awareness that the toads time had come and their freedom was at hand. Settling on a date, we emotionally readied ourselves for their release. Elation for me, reluctance for the girls, the toads... well how should I know how they felt? Happy I was sure.

The release day came and went and still the toads sat hunched under a coconut shell on my kitchen counter. Finally I declared the time had come we can wait NO LONGER! The toads would have their freedom! And we let them go...

Only now every time we go outside these darn toads keep coming up to us and hopping right under foot. As if to say "Take us back! We miss you!"

I guess no one really thought about what the toads wanted and perhaps they find having to forage for their own juicy bugs to be a real drag.

Honey, let me tell you!

2015-05-05T10:19:00.001-07:00

Here's what I LOVE about living in a small community...

My youngest daughter suffers from severe allergies, I'm talking this little girl has suffered from pneumonia in her short life more times than my entire family has in my entire life! Per her pediatricians recommendation I have been in search of local honey to help her.

My trip yesterday to the local roadside market only turned up honey made about an hours drive from here. Close yes, but is it "local" enough to help? After a quick inquiry to the ladies working the stand, I was told to try a local bee keeper to see if he had any honey on hand.

I called said bee keeper this morning to find out that unfortunately they are sold out of last years honey and don't have any yet from this year as the bees are busy making it. The bee keepers wife told me to try the little grocer in town to see if they had anymore in stock from last years honey. I hung up the phone a little disheartened, but hopeful. Ten minutes later my phone rings again, it's the bee keepers wife. She understands the importance of our search as her own son had suffered from terrible allergies as a little one. She even took it upon herself to call the grocer to see if they had any honey left and found out that they're sold out. So she rustled up some honeycomb from last years stock to hold us over with the promise that she'll tell her husband about my little allergy sufferers plight and get him set on harvesting some of this years honey as soon as possible.

She didn't know me from Eve, yet she cared enough about her fellow neighbor to make my quest hers and it's that level of caring and going above-and-beyond that I LOVE about where we live.

Signs you have expat kids

2015-04-09T19:57:00.001-07:00

Signs you have raised expat kids...

The school sends back currency from three different countries that they found donated in their Lenten boxes.

How to pick a dining table.

2015-04-06T10:26:00.001-07:00

While setting a plate in place for Easter brunch I noted a little glob of dried glitter glue. Reminding myself to wipe it off before inviting everyone to the table, I paused for a moment and began to think about the sturdy wood table and the many ways we use it. After giving it some thought I came up with some essentials that every home should keep in mind when table shopping.

So here are my tips for families looking to purchase a new table.

1. Make sure that it is a sturdy, solid and well built table. I prefer a solid, sturdy wooden table, but whatever material you settle on it should be strong and well made. Strong enough to stand the test of time. To carry the weight of countless holiday meals and hold the weight of the largest pumpkin you could carry home from the patch. To weather any number of crafts, science experiments or baking endevours and maybe even the stomping of little dancing feet. A lifetime of memories will be made at your table. It will be the foundation of countless family meals and chats over morning coffee, make it a solid one.

2. Make sure it's pretty, but not TO pretty. Your table should be like the perfect little black dress, capable of fitting in at finer events, but also suitable for casual affairs. Your table should be nice enough to look elegant at fancy holiday dinners or parties, but not so fine that you refuse your children access to it or cringe if a bit of glitter glue or paint accidentally spills on its surface. If a couple of metal forks get banged on it while little, enthusiastic hands learn to use them it shouldn't detract from it's beauty and instead merely adds to your tables unique patina. Nicks and knocks should act as markers for the history of its life as a crucial part of your family's time together.

3. Use your table, often and well. And my last tip, once you have found a suitable table... Use it. Share your meals at it, make crafts with your children at it, paint masterpieces on it, drink coffee or wine or water at it, but do it accompanied by great conversations. Your table should act as a central hub to your family where memories are made, years are spent and families are held together.

Your table should outlast you and pass down to your children, so that those foundations and memories you worked so diligently to foster can carry on with it.

On Tithing.

2014-12-16T17:47:00.001-08:00

The other day at church as the basket made its rounds my husband and I customarily opened our wallets to look for some bills to drop in when our turn came. We handed the money to our daughters who gently held the paper bills in their little fingers and eagerly eyed the basket as it weaved it's way back and forth towards them.

They love this part, they love to give, they love to participate and to have something to contribute in the midst of what they perceive to be a long and boring mass that is punctuated by this one highlight of activity. As the basket came closer my oldest daughter looked up to me with her big doe eyes and asked me "Mommy where does the money go?" "To the church." I answered her. Surprise and shock jumped to her face as she exclaimed "But I thought it went to the people who didn't have any?!"

I looked at her...

Her words struck me...

How do I explain to her now that the money she's been giving each week, the money she so proudly and compassionately shared, goes to pay the electric bill or the repairs or for the bibles, but that very little of it actually helps the poor and the needy.

God spoke in the church that day... but it wasn't through the priest.

Madison does not do Jet-lag!

2014-07-03T02:08:00.001-07:00

Having only had 3-4 hours of sleep each in the last 24 hours. I thought we were all doing well to adjust to the almost 12 hour time difference after arriving in America from Hong Kong.

Snuggled into the hotel bed Brandon was fast asleep, Emma was sawing logs and even I was in and out of sleep which is all I can ever really hope for anyway. I thought to myself, "This is working out great! We'll all be adjusted our very first night home... and then at 12:00 am sharp Madison woke up and whispered "Me hungry." For the next two hours I encouraged her to go back to sleep, but little legs and arms were flailing and whispers kept coming till she had successfully woken up every other member of the family. Now the week long zombie march to adjust to US time begins.

Madison does not do Jet-lag.

Fashion Do's, Dont's and Why-Not's

2014-03-29T08:43:00.001-07:00

Today I allowed the girls to pick out their own clothes. I thought this was a good idea for several reasons; to encourage more independence, exercise decision making, personal expression and a sense of individuality.

With nothing more than the loose suggestion that it should be a warm outfit, they both eagerly set to picking through their clothes for a suitable ensemble.

Madison stuck pretty close to what I would've dressed her in and came to her decision quickly.

Emma feeling the gravity of such freedom took much longer and came to a far more... unique conclusion.

Lest I be quick to judge... having had the desire to jazz things up a bit I had put on bright red lipstick and was feeling pretty good about the decision when, after choosing her clothes, Emma looked at me and said "Why are your lips so red?"

"Because I put on lipstick this morning."

Emma chuckled a little and said "Silly Mommy."

Touché.

What does my River have to teach me?

2014-03-15T15:46:00.001-07:00

The other day, as I looked at the river from my back door, I tried to imagine it as Siddhartha's river, the one that eventual led him to enlightenment and I asked myself..."What does my river have to teach me?"

Unlike Siddhartha I do not have daily contact with my river. I do not touch it's waters or rely on it for a living, in fact it is the exact opposite, for me it inhibits life.

Not only does it inconvience me, but due to our location and inaccessiblity to it we cannot even enjoy it for recreation. So what I am left with is... I can look at it. I can LOOK at my river. Day after day looking at it's ever changing waters, but never touching them. It may as well be a mirage.

So what can I learn from LOOKING at my river?

A lot actually, because in Buddhism we learn that life itself, or at the very least our perception of it, is an illusion. We allow it to pull on our emotions.

To inspire us or fill us with wonder when it glistens.

To depress us or make us sullen when it's bleak.

To make us feel isolated and alone when it's frozen.

But we must remind ourselves that for all it's different appearances, the glitz, the bleakness, the sometimes violent nature of it it is just water and never really changes.

Like life, if we resolve ourselves to sitting and watching the river, to allow it to dictate our lives and our emotions, if we allow ourselves to believe we have no control over our circumstances we become impressionable and trapped by the mirage.

What do dreams cost?

2014-02-27T08:16:00.001-08:00

Pennies. The answer is pennies.

The other day I gave the girls a handful of pennies to throw in a water fountain. Taking the opportunity to teach them one of life's great lessons, I told them that with every penny they could make a wish for something they wanted. I watched their sweet little faces as they closed their eyes with each toss and whispered a wish to themselves.

A few days later Madison, deep in thought, asked me "Member when me threw dat monies in the fountain?"

"Yes. I remember that." I said peering at her in the rear view mirror.

"Me wished dat I could go to the beach with Daddy, and to hab a horse, and to climb a mountain, and to go for a hike with Daddy!"

I was touched at how non-material her wishes were, that she wished for experiences and time with her Daddy rather than toys and things. I'd like to take credit for raising her right, but I honestly think something so good and pure comes from her heart and cannot be learned.

On a related subject, this morning as I dressed her I asked her what she loved most in the world and she told me "playing with Daddy." My heart melts when I hear this. So simple. So sweet. So loving. He is a very lucky man her Daddy!

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Flying with Emma & Madison.

2014-02-09T09:49:00.001-08:00

Emma quotes:

After I asked Maddy if she wanted to open her window for take-off. "Like you can stick your head out open?!"

"I wish they would let us out to walk on the clouds."

"What country are we going to?"

"I have to go back to my own country tomorrow." said to a kid on the playground.

(We're still working on the difference between countries and states.)

Madison quotes:

"I can't see where I'm going!"

"How do we get back down?"

"Do these wings flap like a birds?"

and my favorite...

"WE'RE GOING DOWN!!!"

A Brief Tour of Calhoun.

2014-02-07T08:35:00.001-08:00

For those of you who have never visited Calhoun county here is a brief tour.

The rolling countryside

A rear view of the church (currently being rebuilt after a fire on Christmas Eve 2011) and school baseball field.

Our local grocery store.

More countryside and a charming barn with equally charming barn quilt.

Fine dining, known as the Whittmond Hotel.

Odelehr's where we buy produce and locally canned goods (closed for the season).

Entertainment... sometimes.

Our mailman's farm and...rolling countryside.

... and more rolling countryside.

Escape!!!

Also known as the Winfield (or on better days the Golden Eagle) ferry.

(Now I will confess there is A LOT more to Calhoun county than what I am touching on here, but these are the parts that immediately effect us and the rest is pretty much more of the same, just further north on the map).

Conversations with Madison.

2014-02-03T09:09:00.001-08:00

While looking out of her car window, the sun shining brightly on her face.

"Mom, do I look beautiful in the sun?"

"Absolutely you do!!"

A deep breath and a sweet smile.

"I wuv dis whirled."

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"Mom, I tink you're beautiful."

"I think you're beautiful too sweetie."

"No, just say Thank you!"

*She says this to me often.

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Said after thoroughly enjoying a snack of Nutella and crackers.

"I'm sawwee Mommy."

"Why are you sorry sweetie?"

"Cause I didn't share."

Bittersweet.

2014-02-02T08:50:00.001-08:00

After losing a loved one sometimes the strangest things can trigger a memory of them.

This morning I was introducing my girls to grapefruit (Maddy loves them, Emma hates them) and as I used my mother's old grapefruit spoons to scoop the pink pulp from their flesh and feed them to my girls, I was reminded of myself.

A stringy little blond haired girl sitting at our simple wooden kitchen table. The morning sun streaming in through the screen door of our bright yellow kitchen. My mom shuffling across the hideous orange faux brick linoleum floors and placing in front of me the sliced half of a huge grapefruit.

I can see her in my memory wrapped in her pink terry cloth robe. Her mousy brown hair tousled still from sleep. I see her beautiful smile as she turns back to the counter to prepare another.

And I remember the bittersweet taste of the strange pink fruit sprinkled in an ungodly amount of white sugar... A very appropriate flavor for such a memory.

The Trouble with being a Real food Foodie.

2014-02-01T12:30:00.001-08:00

The good thing about being a real food foodie is that when you're boredom eating there's never any yucky processed junk foods around the house to binge on...

The trouble with being a real food foodie is that your always only a few ingredients away from COOKIES!!!

At least I threw some chia seed and flax mill in there so they're kind of healthy.

The Prettiest Girl in the World.

2014-02-01T07:46:00.001-08:00

Growing up I think every girl can relate to looking at themselves in the mirror and wishing with all their might that they would grow up to be the most beautiful girl in the world.

I'm not talking about just being beautiful! I'm talking about being SO beautiful that you are the envy of all the girls in the world. Men would adore you. Animals would surround you and sing as you frolicked in the meadow kind of beautiful.

Somewhere around middle and high school your wish becomes the more reasonable wish to just be super model beautiful.

And after college you'd settle just to be the most beautiful girl to just one person.

As the saying goes, It isn't until you stop looking that you find what you're looking for.

This morning as I snuggled my sweet Madison on my lap and she turned to me with her lips puckered into a slurpy little kiss and said

"Me lub you. You're so beautiful."

It dawned on me, I AM THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD!

At least for now...

At least while their little.

As it was for most of us, for now in their eyes, there is no woman in the world more beautiful than their Mommy.

And it couldn't be anymore perfect.

Oh the Thinks she can think!

2014-01-30T19:37:00.001-08:00

Reading 'Oh the Thinks you can Think' By Dr. Seuss tonight and I asked "Do you think a balloon would really float flat like that in real life or would it float straight up?"

Emma looked at the picture, pondered for a beat and when she had it she hopped up and said "The diving board is heavy enough to keep this side down..."

Smarty pants!

AMERICANA!!!

2014-01-25T07:28:00.001-08:00

One of the unexpected benefits of raising your children abroad is when you do return to America things that are commonplace for the average American kid become new and VERY exciting for expat kids.

And that is why when we are driving around town you can catch my children enthusiastically pointing out of the window at the NUMEROUS American flags lining the roadside, thoughtlessly over looked by most, and SQUEALING at the top of their lungs.

"American flag! American flag! American flag!"

Or as my little one calls them.

"AMERICANA FLAG! AMERICANA FLAG!

AMERICANA FLAG!"

Could you imagine what it would be like if every American experienced the same level of pride and excitement at the sight of EVERY American flag they came across?

Soap... It's a family thing.

2013-12-25T15:34:00.001-08:00

I remember when the tradition first began. My mom, desperate to give her kids the best Christmas possible on her fixed disability check, had wrapped the little soaps Avon sends as samples and put them in our stockings as stocking stuffers. As I opened each meticulously wrapped soap I light-heartedly said "Are you trying to tell me I stink Mom?"

We laughed and giggled about it, but the next year I found another bar of soap jokingly, if not lovingly, stuck in my stocking. It became our inside joke and over the years the bars of soap evolved from free little samples into some very fine artisan soaps.

With my mother's passing I couldn't bear the thought of not finding those little inside jokes thoughtfully stuffed into my stocking... so I decided to carry on the tradition myself. Now my children and loved ones receive soaps in their stockings Christmas morning, ranging from the quirky and unique to the artisan and hand-crafted.

Never really knowing why, or what it means, or that in some small way their helping me keep my mother's memory alive.

Do you have any holiday traditions that are unique to your family and what are they?

Do you want to build a snowman?

2013-12-15T08:02:00.001-08:00

This morning after both girls had crawled into bed with us and snuggled together between Mommy and Daddy I heard Emma whisper to Madison.

"Do you want to build a snowman?" (Yes, we just saw the movie 'Frozen')

Maddy opened her eyes and held Emma's face in her little hands.

"I lub you." She whispered.

"I love you too Maddy. I'll love you when you are 3. I'll love you when you are 4. I'll love you when you are 5..." and on she went.

On this day, the day we celebrate Madison's 3rd birthday, they are the best gift I could have ever given each other.

A sisters love is something special, something eternal.

You can tell a lot about someone by their hands.

2013-12-10T21:14:00.001-08:00

These are my hands.

They are not soft.

They are not manicured.

They are rough, dry and cracked.

They cause me pain, but I am proud of them.

They are my hands.

I remember the first blisters they earned swinging on the uneven parallel bars in gymnastics.

The scar earned from the time I tested the sharpness of a razor blade with the tip of my index finger (despite being told not to).

The scar gained from a drip of hot oil while making popcorn the old fashioned way with my Grandfather.

I remember when they were stained black with ink pulling prints for an artist in college.

How they blistered as I cathartically pulled weeds from my mothers garden or chipped plaster from her masonry after her death,

And again when I tilled the earth to grow anew my own garden after my marriage.

They are the hands that held my grandfathers, my mothers and my fathers.

They held each of my daughters when they were only seconds into the world.

They wipe tears, soothe owies and caress cheeks.

They are not soft. They have known toil. They show their age a little more than the rest of me (or so I'd like to think) but they are mine and I am proud of them.

In them I see my grandfathers hands. He had the hands of a farm hand. Large, strong and stiff with hardwork. When the day came to view my grandfather after he had passed, I recall looking at his hands and thinking to myself as others might of a loved ones face after death "those are not his hands." It was as if they had shrunk... lost their strength... lost the spark that had made them his.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands.

and I am proud of mine.

Oh Tannenbaum.

2013-12-04T09:40:00.001-08:00

Around this time of year, after all the other trees have lost there leaves, cedar trees are easily spotted dotting the roadside. Seeing them always reminds me of a story my father tells of when he was a young boy that goes more or less like this.

The teacher asked the students one day if anyone would like to provide a Christmas tree for the class to decorate. The young and innocent boy that was my father raised his hand and went home that day to ask my Grandfather, the greatest man I know, to cut down a Christmas tree for his class. With saw in hand my Grandfather trudged out into the woods and cut down the best cedar tree he could find.

Being the only Christmas tree my father had ever known (and the only one his family could afford) he proudly presented the tree to his teacher the following day.

The very next day, when my father arrived at school he saw that the teacher had replaced the tree my father and grandfather had provided with a spruce, or fir, or some other such tree we all associate with Christmas and can be found on any Christmas tree lot.

I can only imagine how that little boy felt. Heart broken, embarrassed and suddenly aware of his own poverty.

This story breaks my heart. My heart aches for the teachers shallowness, it aches for my fathers innocence and good-intentions and it aches for my grandfathers pride and attempt to provide the best he could for his family.

One day I would like to proudly display a cedar tree on Christmas. In honor of my father, my grandfather and of the tree so thoughtlessly discarded so long ago.

Bullied!

2013-12-03T07:29:00.001-08:00

You won't believe this, but Emma is being the target of bullying at her little school.

Emma has always been what we will call "easy paced". I never really thought much of it. She just moves to the beat of a different drum and I liken her to Ferdinand the Bull, who liked to stop and smell the roses. But now her classmates seem to be more and more annoyed with her leisure pace.

Yesterday she came to me after school teary eyed and told me that a kid in her class had threatened to KILL me, because Emma moves slowly.

This morning I spoke with the principal and her kindergarten teacher in regards to the bullying and death threat from her classmate. The principal said he would discuss it with the kids Mother, but I won't lie in such a small, close knit community I am worried they will not advocate for Emma who is viewed very much as an outsider.

Emma is legitimately frightened. She is afraid to drive past farms because she is not sure where this kid lives and she told me this morning "Mommy. I was so scared I thought, I'm going to try and move faster." I told her to NEVER feel bad about herself. That she had done nothing wrong and it is the other kid who should feel bad about themselves. They are the naughty one, not her. I told her to stand up to the bully and say "Don't talk to me like that. You're being a bully!" And then to tell her teacher right away and to tell me after school.

Her father and I have already been debating the idea of homeschooling. After yesterday I was fully prepared to NEVER send her back to that school and to begin homeschooling, but bless her sweet little heart she wants to participate in the Christmas play.

Reading over this makes me cry. I want so badly to shield my sweet little girl from all of this. It is such a shame that my sensitive, outgoing and loving little girl is being discouraged from going to and being happy in school because of bullies!

I cannot even BELIEVE that I am having to discuss DEATH THREATS in kindergarten! Emma and Maddy have never even been exposed to such ideas or violence! It makes me question what is going on in other peoples homes that a KINDERGARTENER is knowledgeable of killing someone?!?!

What the hell is wrong with people?!