Growing Up

Kids these days are different than a generation ago.  We've all seen article after article about how they aren't anything like us kids of the 70s and 80s and it's true.  In some ways they are more mature and in others, incredibly naive.  They don't have the common sense or survival skills that we had in our generation... mainly because they haven't needed it.

But what are the consequences to them not learning how to fend for themselves?  To learn coping skills and to figure out how the world works, on their own terms?  You read about kids who's parents say "we" are applying to Harvard - because the parents don't know how to let go of their child and let them figure out their lives.  They call up the school and get them out of trouble rather than letting them suffer the consequences of their actions.

It's also a result of society today.  We've coddled our kids because we are afraid to let them go.  We are afraid of all the crazies out there, of all the harm that could come to them if we don't keep an eagle eye on them 100% of the time.  It's not that we don't trust our children, but we don't trust the other guy, the one that could hurt them.

I could go on and on.  But the point is, it's a very different generation than we were.  At some point though, we have to let them try to fly.  They may crash and burn and they may soar, hopefully the latter.  But without letting them try, we can't let them succeed or learn from their failures.  The hope is that the failures don't have fatal consequences - none of us want that.  But we need to let them take chances or they will never grow up to be the leaders of the world.

Aidan's at an age now where we are letting him take more and more chances.  We are letting him test those wings and see where they will take him. And I think living abroad has lessened our fears, at least a little.  I think of the parent I would be if I had stayed home in the States and the parent I am here. That's not a judgement on any other parent in the States - that's saying that I think I would have been a different parent there than I am in Europe.

With us now living in the suburbs again, it's a little easier to give our little bird a push towards independence.  Sometimes this seems to come with a lot of "can I watch (xyz)?" or "can I play (abc)?" and "I want (an iphone, tv in my room, ps4)".  He wants to grow up before we are ready for him to. And it's hard sometimes to find the happy medium of our little boy and the tween he now is, getting ready for more independence and maturing every day into the young man he is becoming.

It's amazing to watch how he's maturing.  The questions he asks are more thought provoking.  Some often annoying (how many times in one day can we discuss the iphone that he's dying for?)?  But all coming from a boy who is growing up fast.  Next year he starts secondary school and I expect us to see even more changes as he will no longer be the oldest in the school but looking up to the older kids and learning from the behaviors he sees.  As it is, he's regularly talking with a boy that he's befriended that goes to the secondary school and already picking his brain on what to expect.  Planning ahead!

We're letting him do more things on his own. He plans his own playdates (or at least makes the calls and tries to coordinate as best he can).  He is riding his bike 1.5 miles to the skateboard park which requires him to ride his bike through the center of town on his own.  And he's allowed to roam our neighborhood by himself.  And we know this is just the start of so much more that's coming.

I know some of you probably have kids his age that are already doing these things but you have to remember that for the last 5 years, he was a city kid who was not able to do them because of his geographical location.  It's hard to let a 9 year old roam city streets on his own.  And while he had great city smarts living in Barcelona, he's forgotten what it's like to have suburban skills so we know we've got to work on those too.

He's become a citizen of the world and that is also something we are incredibly proud of.  This is a life lesson that he could not have learned had he stayed home in the US all this time.  As a result, I find that our conversations are very different than I would expect at 10 years old.  He sees the world from a very different perspective than you or I - it's a much smaller place than we have grown up with.

Unfortunately some of this growing up also means he needs us less and less and is becoming more independent (some of these things are also really good like not having to tell him to take a shower in the morning 5000 times!).  Hopefully his desire for independence means we are doing something right in how we are bringing him up!

Not little boys any more...

When we left the US almost 5 years ago, we had a toddler and a little boy with us.  How far we've come since then.  It's hard seeing these guys growing up so quickly but as we take on this new adventure in the Netherlands, I'm excited to see what happens next!

Besos,
Julie

October Break

As the kids are in a new school system, one that falls more into the British style, we have had to adjust to a new schedule - not just on a daily basis, but also as far as their school breaks.  A few weeks ago, the kids had their first school break.  Coming from a system that started in September with some long weekends thrown in regularly but no long break until December, it felt weird to have a week long break in mid October.  But given the kids started school in mid August, it was, in fact, time for a much needed week off.

I had originally thought I would take the kids away somewhere, Stockholm to visit friends or perhaps Venice since they had never been.  I thought maybe Rome.  I even thought of taking them back to Barcelona since their friends wouldn't be on break and they'd get to have a nice visit with them.  But poor planning on my end, expensive flights and swim classes and doctor's appointments meant that I couldn't pull it together.  Since we'd only been here just 2 months, it was not a bad thing to have to stick around.  We don't need to travel at every break.  It was one thing when we thought we were only going to be in Europe for 2 years, but now almost 5 years later, the urgency has diminished.

Since Josh was off the week before due to his surgery, I was on my own for planning the fall break. We overall took things easy.  Since nothing here opens on Mondays til around 1, we just laid low. Liam had a friend over and then we went to Almere to look at skateboard wheels for Aidan's skateboard.

Tuesday I had told the kids we would go into Amsterdam for the day.  Since Josh's injury meant that on weekends we couldn't do much walking, we hadn't actually been in to the city since before we moved here.  We have been to Amsterdam a few times over the years, but this would be our first time exploring it as "our" city.  We had no grand plan beyond getting breakfast at Sara's pancake house (our favorite) and perhaps a visit to Tun Fun.  We took the train in with Josh which was good - I knew we could do it on our own, but it felt good to know that Josh was an expert, so to speak, on getting us to Amsterdam Centraal.

Waiting for our train at Weesp

We went to Josh's office and I probably could have just left the kids there for the day as they had a "new" video game in the break room with something like 300 old school video games.  Alas Josh wasn't up for me leaving them ;)

Playing some kind of ninja game

We had our traditional breakfast at Sara's Pancakes - yum!!  And Aidan asked if we could go to the Apple store to look at new itouches.  Given he just got a new ipad this summer I really don't think we need to upgrade his itouch but I was willing to humor him.  And no, we did not upgrade it but left there empty handed.  

Blueberry and ice cream pancakes before 10AM... yeah that gets a thumbs up.

Yay Apple Store!!

However, it was a bonus that leaving the Apple store we happened across the American / British store. Yay!!  Happy day!!  The kids and I went (slightly) crazy at all the American "goodness".  Ok, none of it had any healthy redeeming value to it, but it was a piece of home and made us all happy.

So happy leaving the American store (100 euros poorer)

Of course, I didn't think of the fact that I would have to carry all this crap on my shoulder for the next several hours, but their smiles made it worth it and Aidan helped me out too.  Next time we should bring the granny cart so we can at least pull it along!  

In the end we did make it to Tun Fun.  There was a lot of whining on the 20 minute walk but I attribute that to rain and the ugly hungries.  They had a blast for a good hour in Tun Fun and then we headed back towards Josh's office before heading back home to Naarden.  Along the way we found an English comic book store which had to be explored (thank you Big Bang Theory for that new habit my kids now have).  It turns out there is also an English bookstore that I just found out about but I guess that will have to wait until our next trip into the city.

Wednesday Aidan had swimming but both kids had friends over.  It was a lovely, easy day and the kids were just great.  Made for a great day.  Thursday Aidan had an eye appointment but another mom had told me about the Lego World exposition being held in Utrecht, a city about 30 minutes south of us. Knowing the boys obsession with all things Lego, I knew we had to make this work.

So since we had to be in Hilversum for an eye appointment at 3:45, I took the kids to Utrecht for the opening at 10, knowing that Aidan's friends wouldn't be meeting us until closer to 12.  But since we had to leave by 2:30ish I wanted them to get to explore as much as they could.  And it was super cool! The complaint that Aidan had about Legoland was that there wasn't enough opportunity to just build. Here they had a place to build in every exhibit.  And yet neither of my kids really wanted to do it.  But they loved exploring all around the expo which was huge!!

Free lego guys!

Lego Star Wars - so cool!

Lightsaber battle!

This was a real guy not a statue

Same here

Caring big brother helping Liam

Bacon pancake

Old school legos - Aidan was shocked at what we used to play with ;)  No Star Wars legos for us!

Chima game - trying to find the chi

Aidan's friends from school met up with us and then the building commenced

Lego angels?

We made it to Aidan's eye appointment in the nick of time - still has to wear his glasses but at least his eyes haven't gotten worse.  It was raining on the way and we saw a rainbow which was cool.  We actually see them pretty regularly - if there is a silver lining to living in a rainy climate, it's rainbows on a regular basis.

The rest of the break was overall low key.  We did more than we had anticipated which was fun but exhausting.  We're looking forward to our Christmas break in just 7 weeks.  It's going to be an epic trip but I'm not ready to share the details quite yet but stay tuned.  In the meantime, we're enjoying fall foliage which we haven't had for the last 5 years and the change of seasons (which of course has made us all sick at one time or another).  

Besos,

Julie

Day 1...Into the Fire (Immersion 101)

As I mentioned in my last post, Josh went to work on day 1.  I could have killed him - angry doesn't even come close on that one.  I felt incredibly alone and abandoned.  There is nothing like being thrown into the fire and start our new lives by myself.  What could I do?  I couldn't stay home.  The kids had to go to school and I had to figure out how to function. And I had to unpack and get back to work.

Josh left at 7:15 - the kids and I didn't need to leave until after 8.  I suppose on a positive note, we get an extra 30 minutes in the morning that we didn't have in Barcelona.  It was raining off and on again like it did when we arrived.  An hour of sun, an hour of rain, an hour of sun, an hour of rain.  It goes on and on like that.  It's sunny one moment and pouring the next.

Aidan woke up and said we need to turn the heat on.  In August.  I can't say that I totally disagree (sadly it has since been turned on... in August I must reiterate).  Barcelona this is not.  Unfortunately I didn't anticipate it to be this cold in August and so hadn't located their cold weather clothes yet and shipped anything I had purchased.  In Barcelona they are normally in shorts until November.  Even in Boston, they would have been in them at least til mid September!

Breakfast in our new kitchen

In front of our house ready to go - notice the raincoats - good investment!

In front of their new school

Aidan's new classroom

Liam in his new class

Regardless, I had to send them to school in shorts.  Driving wasn't a big deal thanks to my GPS. Thankfully Josh had pre programmed pretty much anywhere I would need to go for the foreseeable future into it, including school.  Unfortunately the GPS got the school address wrong (the school was on the right and it told me to turn left - but at least it was the same street, though we were lost for a few minutes trying to figure it out) but thankfully had built in a few extra minutes into our trip to school not knowing what traffic would be like, etc.

I can honestly say that right off the bat, I felt better about getting the kids to school than I did in Barcelona.  I remember clearly the desperate feeling of not knowing how to navigate the public transportation to get Aidan to school his first day in Barcelona (the school had recommended he not take the bus the first few days but for me to bring him and pick him up).  In the end in Barcelona, I took a taxi.  On Monday, I drove and I felt pretty good about it.  We were there in 15 minutes even with getting lost.

Knowing that their school is also a Dutch school, I wasn't sure where we had to enter or where to go. We never received information on what to do upon arrival.  The good news is that it's a small school, only grades pre-k through grade 5 and only one section per grade.  So we couldn't get too lost.  But they had everything under control and very easily corralled all the new students into a lobby area - we must have all had that lost look on our faces.  Liam looked incredibly nervous and I don't blame him - this is his first new school.  Aidan looked in control, typical of him and maybe it's because it's the second time around he feels like he can handle it.  They then brought everyone upstairs to their classrooms where the other students and teachers were waiting.  Parents were allowed to go up with the kids - a challenge for me with 2 kids and only one of me.

There are 14 kids in Aidan's class, a switch from last year where he had around 20.  Liam, on the other hand, who had always been in the small class (last year was 14) was now the opposite, with the largest class in school of 20 kids.  And I thought Benjamin Franklin was small in Barcelona!  So there are 14 kids in grade 5 (year 7 at this school) and 20 kids in grade 2 (year 4).  That's it.  I'm going to say we will get to know everyone really well here.  The school doesn't feel like BFIS did but it's only day 1 so we'll give it time.  Apparently they have a ton of after school activities so that would be different from their old school in a positive way.

I met a very nice couple who had also just moved here as we were getting ready to leave.  Their son is in Liam's class and they have been living abroad for a while as well.  I chatted with them for about 45 minutes.  Lovely people and hopefully a connection made already.  It felt really good to meet people off the bat as I don't feel quite as alone and it's only day 1.

I was feeling pretty good considering the circumstances and the day before knowing that I successfully dropped off the kids to school and met a new family.  So far so good.  Then I got home.  And I couldn't open the front door.  Induce meltdown in 5, 4, 3...

I called Josh freaking out.  He offered to come home.  I told him I didn't want to see him now or any time soon.  I think he realized that he should not have gone to work on our first day.  He admitted as much.  Didn't make me any less angry though.  I spent a good 10 minutes trying to open the front door, practically in tears.  And of course, it was raining out.

Finally, I gave up trying to open the door and went next door hoping perhaps someone would be home that could help me.  I figured maybe there was something different about these Dutch doors as compared to any other door I've ever used?????  The benefit of being in a country where many people speak English is that I suspected that my neighbor would speak it and in fact, he did.  And coincidentally, he had also lived in Spain with his wife for 6 years and had just returned back about a year ago.

He helped me with the door - turns out that something is weird with our lock and you have to pull it towards you as you unlock it and then push it in.  Very strange but now I get it.  It seems that the door automatically locks when you close it too so I need to be conscious of making sure I always have a key when I leave the house.

I chatted with my neighbor for a bit.  Really nice guy and felt like perhaps I made a second connection for the day.  All in all, not bad for day 1.  But by now it's 10:30 and I had to leave at 11:30 to pick up the kids at noon since the first day was a half day.  I accomplished basically nothing on day 1.

I picked up the kids and they had a great first day, a huge relief for me.  I'm not sure what I would have done if they'd had a bad day though.  And don't get me wrong, we've still been having meltdowns about how sad they are that we are no longer in Barcelona - it's all a part of the grieving process for each of us.  And we went through the same thing when we left the US years ago as well.

I'm still not feeling great about everything but much better than I did yesterday.  I feel like we made a lot of progress in just one day and we're already more immersed than we were in Barcelona at this point.  It feels less scary than Barcelona did early on and so I need to take that as a positive.  There are still many things left on our to do list such as BSN numbers (social security), getting signed up for sports, converting my license, etc etc and so I don't think we will really feel settled for several more weeks but we are making progress.

On a random note, I found out that while some stores are open on Sundays here (nothing in Barcelona was open on Sunday other than restaurants), most places don't open til 1PM on Monday, everything closes by 6PM during the week except Thursday where they are open later.  So we'll have some new schedules to get used to here as well on top of everything else!  But on a positive note, I won't have siesta to contend with!!

Besos,
Julie

Summer Camp

We decided last summer on the spur of the moment that the kids were ready for summer camp.  At that time, we had been planning to move back to the States after this school year ended and we figured the timing would be perfect - we would take a cruise thru the Baltics (which we did) as a goodbye Europe trip and then the kids would go to camp for 3 weeks while we got the house back into working order to move back in before school started in September.

Well the best laid plans... you know how it ends.  The Baltic Cruise ended up not being a "goodbye Europe" tour but instead was an "introduction to Northern Europe where you will be spending the next several years" tour.  And so camp instead became the "I need to pack the rest of our stuff and move it to Amsterdam" part of the summer.

I will admit I was a little nervous about sending the boys to 3 weeks of overnight summer camp.  As I kid, this is not something I could have ever done.  But these guys are so much stronger than I ever was. And both expressed a desire to go.  Though as the time grew closer I could tell they were ambivalent - I don't blame them!

If anything, we figured this would give them a chance to be closer to nature (after almost 5 years of city living, there was very little country boy in either of them - in fact, Aidan freaked out when he saw an ant at my parents' the day after we arrived in the US), gain some independence, meet some new kids and get to enjoy the freedom that goes with no one constantly saying "don't do that", "don't touch that", "stop hitting your brother", etc etc.

We did some research on camps but in the end we decided to send them to Camp Wekeela in Hartford, Maine.  Why?  Because it's the same camp Josh went to as a kid and to this day, he still tells stories about his times spent there.  And while it would cost us an arm and a leg, to hopefully give the kids those kinds of memories would be worth it.

My in laws came with me to drop the boys off and I'm glad they did as the expected 3 1/2 hour drive ended up taking 5 1/2 hours.  Yes, an extra 2 hours.  I was stressed because it was a one hour window drop off.  Turns out that the one hour window was really just a "guide", kind of like the mandatory must ship your bags up to camp to the tune of $200 so we can unpack your kids before you get here, kind of thing.  And no, their bags weren't unpacked, in fact, we couldn't even find Aidan's for a good half hour.

We got to camp and I just have to say wow... this place is amazing.  It was all we saw in the pictures and more.  I felt really good about leaving them here and knowing they would be in good hands.  And while I thought the drop off process could be a little better organized, I knew they would be having the time of their lives for the next 3 weeks.

Gymnastics building

A few of the cabins

Dining hall

Part of Little Bear Pond in the distance

Totem pole - it was there when Josh went here too!

Yes, I have made it!!!!

But despite the long drive and the bag issue, the moment the kids got to Camp Wekeela, they were so excited. We found Liam's cabin first and he immediately claimed his bunk.  Liam was the one I was most worried about - he still isn't the best at wiping his butt (he's going to love reading this years from now), he struggles getting dressed and he tends to be a bit of a wanderer.  He also embraces his inner baby and isn't the most independent.  Yes, I was worried about what this would be like for him.  But at the same time, I knew he needed this opportunity to see what he was capable of and to let him shine.

Liam's cabin - Navajo

Liam on his top bunk

Liam's bunkmates

We found Aidan's bunk which was on the other side of camp from Liam's.  He had fewer kids which I think worked for him.  Within moments of us finding his camp bag, he was ready for us to leave.  My little boy is all grown up.  I am so proud of how independent and confident he was as we left him there.

Aidan's cabin - Abnaki

Me and my big kid

Aidan's cabin crew

Thankfully I had signed up for a service that allowed us to download pictures that the camp posted on their secure site as well as send unlimited emails to the kids.  That didn't mean that they got to email us back.  The emails were printed out and put in their bunks and then they could handwrite a message back which was then scanned and emailed back to us.  It was NO technology for them for 3 weeks. It was good for them and they survived!

And so Josh and I looked daily at the pictures - the ones with Aidan were full of smiles.  The ones of Liam were iffy - some smiles and some moments where he looked... lost.  But overall,  he looked like he was having a good time.  We sent them messages but not too many.  Maybe 2 per week.  And they each sent a few back, short but sweet.  Aidan did send one that made me feel a little unsure about if he was having a good time or not, but in the end, he said he had a blast.  And while Liam looked lost in a few pictures, Aidan said he was actually quite popular, though he did often fall asleep in random places.  I'm sure that with all the constant stimulation, sports and late nights, the poor kid was just exhausted!!

As far as favorite things from camp - Aidan said his favorite sport was building fires.  I reminded him that building fires is not actually a sport.  Liam's was soccer.  They both loved the color wars which was made up of the green team (their team) and the white team and there were challenges over the course of several days.  Their team won!

Beautiful shot of Little Bear Pond from camp - how can you not want to spend 3 weeks here?

Final nights at Camp Wekeela

2014 season comes to a close

The kids loved camp so much that more than a week later, they are still talking about it, still singing the chants and still excited about the experience.  And so we've decided that they will go back again next year to which they are thrilled!  So while our flights are yet booked, it looks like we will be spending the boys' entire summer vacation at home (they only get 6 weeks of vacation) again.  And we can't wait - already something to look forward to!!

Besos,

Julie