by Loren Braunohler | Jun 20, 2016 | 2016, Europe, Expat Life, Poland, Uncategorized
Imagine that it is your child’s first day of preschool. You are nervous, naturally, about them adapting and being able to spend time away from you. They are not sure what to expect and may be dealing with a
range of emotions from excitement to apprehension and fear. It is a big step – for both of you.
First day of pre-school in Poland
Now take that first day and move it to a different country. The school operates in a different language, which neither of you speak, and you and your child do not know anyone. You have only just arrived in this country a week ago and now you are saying goodbye to your child for a few hours, hoping that they will somehow understand what is going on and perhaps make a few friends despite the language and cultural barriers that lie before them. One thing is for sure – you don’t know what is going on.
This was our family in September. Being a US Foreign Service family that moves every two or three years, the expat life is not new to us, but sending our three-year old to a local Polish school was. The result? We are more connected to the local community in Poland than we have been in the previous six countries where we lived over the past 13 years.
As an expat, it is easy to arrive somewhere new and settle into a community of other expats. When you move far from home, you seek comfort and familiarity; both of which can be found with other expats who are in the same boat and who may share the same language, customs, traditions, and beliefs that you do. We’re guilty of it: we’ve done it in Thailand, Sudan, Venezuela, Australia, and Mozambique. It’s certainly not a bad thing. In fact, sometimes that familiarity is what keeps you sane. But, other times, being so ensconced in an expat community can unintentionally keep you from making local friends and appreciating the culture and traditions around you.
What have we gained from putting our daughter in a local preschool?
Visiting a local festival in Krakow
First and foremost, she is happy and has made a great group of friends. Her teachers are enthusiastic, loving, and kind. Additional bonuses? She understands and speaks Polish. The whole family has learned about Polish traditions, customs, and holidays as she celebrates them in school. It has allowed us to make a number Polish friends, further educating us about Polish lifestyle and culture. It has been humbling – for me, in particular. Each time I pick her up, drop her off, and attend school functions, I am embarrassed by my inability to speak Polish, but I have been overwhelmed by the warmth of those parents who speak English and go out of their way to befriend us. And from those friendships come great advice on where else to travel in Poland, what to see and what to do, what events to attend, and how to honor and celebrate Polish holidays.
The choice we made, albeit out of cost and convenience considerations at first, has helped us to dig deeper than the typical expat life we generally adopt when overseas. In turn, it makes the limited time we have in Poland richer and more meaningful.
Sometimes the decisions that scare you the most reap you the biggest rewards. In the beginning I asked myself if we were doing the right thing by sending our 3-year old to a school where neither she, nor I, could understand what was going on. Eight months later, we know we made the right choice.
This is an original post written by Loren Braunohler for World Mom’s Network
by ThinkSayBe | May 27, 2016 | 2016, Adolescence, Advice, Awareness, Being Considerate, Being Thankful, Blogging, Caring, Child Care, Childhood, Communication, Culture, Education, Expat Life, Eye on Culture, Family, Global Citizenship, Gratefulness, Happiness, Health, Helping, Humanity, Humor, Inspirational, International, Kids, Life, Life Balance, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Motherhood, Moving, Multicultural, North America, Parenting, Partnerships, Relationships, Respect, Responsibility, Responsibility, The Americas, ThinkSayBe, Travel, USA, Womanhood, World Motherhood, Younger Children, Youth
If you’re a parent, or a child, or anyone, you may have heard the phrase. “It takes a village” (to raise a child). After reading a post written by a fellow contributor, KC, I remained in thought about this village that’s needed to raise our children.
KC is currently a stay-home-mum to a precious toddler, so you know she has one of the most rewarding and challenging positions in the universe; one weighted with a lot of responsibility, as well. Thankfully she takes the time to write about some of what’s going on in her world as a mum, a woman, and as a person, because out of her writing I found something I want to discuss, too. Check her out at http://www.mummyintransit.com. She is a really good writer, and she’s funny too.
In reading KC’s post I thought about my own experience as a child in Italy, a teenager in Tanzania, and an adult and parent in the United States. What was my village like? Who did my mum include in forming my personality and my worldview?
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I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!
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by Orana Velarde | May 25, 2016 | 2016, Asia, Awareness, Being Thankful, Environment, Expat Life, Global Citizenship, Living Abroad, Sri Lanka, Uncategorized
Monsoon season is on the brink.
To make things interesting there was a Tropical Depression that started in Sri Lanka and made its way to India, flooding everything in it’s path. It turns out that “Flooding in Sri Lanka” made it to the Facebook Safety Check system and I promptly marked my family as “safe”.
There have unfortunately been a lot of displaced families and ruined homes. Landslides and too much water put Sri Lanka on the news. If you would like to donate to the flood victims please visit the site for YAMU that offers plenty of options for helping from abroad. Our family is in a safe area.
The two days of intense rain that cause the flooding got me thinking of how I always remember an occurrence of strong rain about every place I have lived in.
There are few things I like more than being inside at night with all the lights off and a thunderstorm raging. The way the lightning shines on everything for just a second; it’s like a dangerous magic sparkle.
The first time I ever saw real heavy rain was in Miami when I was 9 years old. I couldn’t believe that so much water could fall from the sky at once. In Lima, our rain was more like spittle in the air, making everything damp instead of washing away grime. The trees got moist but never really clean so the leaves stayed dirty from the soot that never washed away.
The rain in Miami was ruthless, it soaked you in seconds if you got caught outside, parks and streets flooded, the sky would explode in light and the wind would whistle between the houses. When I was 12 we experienced Hurricane Andrew and even if it was a bit scary, I fell in love with heavy rain. Since then, every place I have traveled to or lived in has been marked by episodes of rain.
When my oldest daughter was little, we lived in Cusco, a city in the Andes where rains are quite special. Rainbows are an every day occurrence and sun showers always took our breath away. Once in a while it would hail and the streets would get covered in little rivulets of ice pellets. I loved those days; the sound of hail hitting the roof was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talk.
When I left Cusco, the thing I missed the most was the beautiful cotton like clouds that formed against the crisp blue sky. I didn’t see those again until we arrived in Bangkok. What a sight, giant billowy formations over skyscrapers intertwined with wispy fingers over a deep blue sky that would suddenly turn grey and break loose like a thousand waterfalls. Rain so powerful that you couldn’t see the buildings across the street.
My kids have never been afraid of thunder and lightning, they get excited when they hear the rumbling getting closer and closer as a storm moves in. We watch from the window trying to guess where the next flash of lightning will strike.
I read a book once about a hippy commune in Goa, India. I clearly recall that the foreigners would disappear every year during the monsoon season. What a magical word, “monsoon”.
I didn’t realize the magnitude of a monsoon until we arrived in Phuket. The floods were maddening, the wind overpowering, the rains could last for days on end with no breaks or openings in the sky. Those were long, needless to say, wet days.
In the book Goa Freaks, the people that leave for the monsoon are the foreigners; obviously the locals stay. I am living this firsthand in Sri Lanka and the thing that surprises me the most is how people just go on with their lives, wading through the flood. The women in soaked saris going to work or getting things done without a care in the world. The strong rains are so common that it does not stop people from living. Life is just a little wet here on the shores of the Bengal Sea.
Is there a weather phenomenon that has stayed with you through time? Are your children scared of thunderstorms?
If you would like to donate to the Sri Lanka Flood Relief, please visit YAMU, there are plenty of online “from abroad” options if you are not in Sri Lanka
This is an original World Moms Blog post by Orana Velarde, Peruvian mother in Sri Lanka
by Loren Braunohler | Apr 11, 2016 | 2016, Europe, Expat Life, Life Balance, Parenting, Poland, SAHM, School, Stay-At-Home Parent, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Indulging in ice cream on a hot day in Krakow’s main market square
Free time. Sometimes I feel like I would give an arm and a leg for a little bit of free time. To have lunch with friends. To go to the gym. To take a nap. To read. To go to the grocery store all by myself. To do nothing.at.all. I knew when I signed up to be a stay-at-home parent that I would have little time to myself. I also knew that with my husband’s job, which has us moving to a different country every two or three years, that having a set of grandparents (or two) close by to provide some regular child-free relief was not going to happen. In our journey across the globe, we’ve been fortunate enough to find our place and develop our circles of friends. The expat communities in Thailand and Poland have been good to us, and we know that if we have an emergency, we can call on the support of our friends to help us out with the kids if need be. That is the way it works when you are abroad. You help each other out. And I am so grateful for these friends and their support.
But, still, when you are a stay-at-home parent, particularly not near close friends and family, you spend an extraordinary amount of time with your kids. This is of course exhausting, but also wonderful. You get to witness every little new thing they discover, the days their mood begins to change and they develop new facets of their personality, and watch the bond between siblings grow (yes, a time does come when they stop fighting constantly). Your life is so wrapped up in theirs that it is hard to imagine a time when it will no longer be that way. Their every little move is known to you, and yours to them.
Enjoying waffles while visiting the Easter markets in Krakow
But, one day they will go off to school – all of them (in my case, three) – and then, you will actually have free time. Think about that for a minute. You, without needing to feel guilty, will be able to do what you want to do – whether that is going back to work part-time or full-time, or taking on a new hobby or two, or just enjoying the peace and quiet for awhile. This is your time. So what will you do?
I am not going to lie. I have about 18 things on my plate that I would like to do when the kids start school. I’d like to start writing more often and for more publications, I would like to write another children’s book (and hope that it will be successfully published this time). I would like to train for and run a marathon. I would like to learn to swim and bike correctly and try my hand at a triathlon. I would like to become a good photographer. I would like to get back to writing thank you notes, planning ahead of time, and reading. I would like to cook and not be rushed. I would like to explore the city – take tours, visit the non-kid friendly museums, mosey about Krakow’s beautiful old market square.
So yea, it’s safe to say I’ve thought about what I will do when the kids go to school. But sometimes I wonder if the thrill of free time will peter out quickly. The reason I stopped working five years ago was to stay at home with the kids.
Will I be able to feel that my life is fulfilling when they are no longer at home, nor fully dependent on me? Will what I plan to do with my time be “enough?” Will it fill the void of not having them around? Will my time be useful? And if so, to whom will it be useful?
Enjoying a morning of fun at the Engineering Museum in Krakow
I have talked to other mothers who have the same concern. One friend in particular who just went through the process of sending her boys off to school for the first time (she home-schooled them previously) has struggled with feeling whether what she is doing in her free time “enough?” When your role – for years – is to raise sweet little beings into strong, confident, and loving children, and then one day the time you have to do that is cut back significantly – what will that feel like? Will it be a blow? Will it be a relief? Will it be bittersweet?
At a minimum, it will be an adjustment. And while I don’t have any answers, yet, it is just one more milestone on this path of parenthood.
Are you a stay-at-home parent? How have you adjusted, or how will you adjust, to your kids going to school?
p>This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Loren Braunohler of Poland.
by Loren Braunohler | Nov 23, 2015 | Advice, Awareness, Being Thankful, Caring, Childhood, Europe, Expat Life, Family, Happiness, Independence, Life Lesson, Milestones, Motherhood, Parenting, Poland, Priorities, Responsibility, World Motherhood, Younger Children
Can we just stay in a world where bagel necklaces solve all of our problems?
Shocked. Confused. Completely taken aback. That’s what happened the other day when I was watching my two young girls on the playground and elementary-aged kids came out to play. Horrible language, bullying, and throwing around malicious comments about looks, behavior, and sexual orientation.
Those words. Those attitudes. That scrutiny. I was so suddenly jolted from my innocent little world of swings and sand castles and hoisted into a “big kid” universe that I was disbelieving of what was happening around me.
I had so many questions. How do these kids even know these words? Should I do something to intervene? And then the realization hit. My children, now ages 5, 3 and nearly 2, will be thrown into similar situations in the not-so-distant future. And what would they do in this situation? Have I taught them to respect others? To be the right kind of friend?
And close behind became a second epiphany. These are the days. The days to appreciate. The days not to take for granted. I think I have problems when my 20 month old won’t go down for a nap on the first try. Or when my kindergartener drops an entire box of Cheerios on the floor. When my three-year old refuses to wear anything but her Olaf sweatshirt. When my toddler eats Play Doh. Problems. These are our “problems.”
Sometimes I find myself complaining, maligning the fact that my children can’t quite do things for themselves yet. After my encounter on the playground, I’ll keep my problems and multiply them by one hundred before wishing for my kids to grow up.
Yes, I’ll happily read “Old McDonald Had A Farm” 100 times in a row, help you put on your socks and velcro your shoes, and carry you when you are just too tired to walk anymore, because these “problems” are not really problems at all. They are tiny – nearly microscopic – bumps in the road to becoming independent.
And as not-so-subtly thrown in my face that day on the playground, I realized that as children grow up, their problems become more delicate, emotional, and serious. The problems that they face are more complicated and likely to impact others.
Can someone please find a way to make time stand still? Because I don’t want to get to the more serious stuff. I want them to stay young, innocent, and oblivious to mean behavior, bad language, and unforgiving situations. And I want my problems to revolve around Cheerios and Play Doh rather than the much, much harder stuff.
But try as I may, I can’t freeze time. They will grow up and make choices on their own. And when they reach that point, my hope is that the example I have set for them is to be kind; love others; empathize; have unwavering confidence in who they are; and surround themselves with the right people. If they adopt that attitude, maybe we will be able to navigate the real problems with greater ease.
Just a few weeks ago, I volunteered to read to my son’s class. He proudly sat in my lap as I read, and when we left school that day, he asked, “Mommy, can you go on the next field trip with us? You know mommies are allowed to go on field trips.” It didn’t take me long to find a babysitter for my younger two so that I could chaperone his next trip.
Happy to chaperone my son’s field trip to the ornament factory
I’m not going to let these days pass me by – these days when they are impressionable, eager to listen and learn, and want me around. I’m going to use them as wisely as I can. Instead of thinking I have problems when my toddler throws her winter hat off for the tenth time in one day or my three year old melts down when her brother doesn’t bring her something from the school bake sale. I will think about how trivial our “problems” are in comparison to the more grown-up situations they will soon face.
And I will use the extra time I have not obsessing over the small things but to teach them how to embrace the qualities that will serve them well on that critical day when they have to start making important choices on their own.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog from our mom to three and writer in Poland, Loren Braunohler.
The images used in this post are attributed to the author.
by Tina Marie Ernspiker | Oct 30, 2015 | 2015, Boys, Expat Life, Family, Health, Husband, Kids, Life Lesson, Living Abroad, Mexico, Motherhood, Parenting, World Motherhood, Younger Children
As a wife of one and a mom of four, it seems like I am always learning and discovering! I know I am not alone. It doesn’t matter where we live, let’s just admit it:
The world is a big place, life is a lesson, and children can be the best teachers.
Previously my series, Life Lessons with Mexico Mom, was hosted on Los Gringos Locos. Starting today, I will host it here on World Moms Blog. Look for it the last Friday of every month. I hope you will join us for our continuing adventures in Mexico and beyond. You won’t be disappointed 😉
Here are my most recent insights and experiences as a Mexico Mom: (more…)
