Growing a world-shaped heart
I just love that French word “terroir”, most often used in reference to wine. Terroir describes that dynamic process by which the whole environment: climate, geography, soil, air – gives […]
The fantastic gift of being a Third Culture Kid
Hey kiddos, it’s your own Third Culture Mama here (with papa chiming in!). It’s your parents who watch from the edge of our seats as you slowly attempt to recreate […]
New Eyes for an Old Home: Adult Third Culture Kids
“I am sure you’ll be so thankful to be back home in your country” wrote my friend in a farewell card as all the cogs were in motion for us […]
Keeping the family afloat
We uprooted our life just one week ago. That’s when we moved our family of five from city life in the United States to a small village in France. Wow. […]
Let the stuff go, baby!
We’re down to the final week in our house. We’ve entered that painful stage of moving where living in our house is no longer enjoyable. You know, the one where […]
Neither here nor there
Our last month in the United States is flying by at a breakneck pace. I had all these ideas of topics to blog about, but I am not finding the […]
Big news for our family
In case you’ve caught word, friends, the rumors are true. In just five weeks from today, we will move our little family of five to a village in France. It’s […]
Ignore the kids!
There is plenty of advice out there about getting kids to speak a second or third (weaker) language. One of my absolute favorite ways to get the kids speaking a […]
Raising Global Citizens at Home – online summit
You might have noticed the button on the right side of my page promoting this week’s virtual summit. If not, don’t worry, I ‘m here to tell you all about […]
Pediatricians around the world!
We just recently took all three kids, ages four and under, to our pediatrician here in the United States. It’s difficult to even describe the level of chaos generated by […]
This is my world.
Hi. I’m Ayo and it was my birthday this month. I’m four years old now. Ayo is my nickname. It’s actually my middle name. It’s short for Ayodelé. That’s not […]
Great gifts for multicultural families
I’m not a very creative gift giver. I’ll often Google to find last minute gift ideas. (Please tell me I am not alone?) Well, guess what I found when I […]
For weary parents of bilinguals
A very pregnant Nae chased me around the park. She had overheard me speaking to the kids in French and was looking for tips. Encouragement, really. Nae had stopped speaking […]
Inside my Tuesday home
It’s Tuesday. Gone is the ambition of Monday. Friday seems so far away. Tuesday is on the way to somewhere and it hasn’t arrived yet. My Tuesday home is surrounded […]
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
I jumped right into All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, the fifth of Maya Angelou’s seven part autobiographical series and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In this installment, Angelou writes about […]
6 tips for TCKs returning “home”
The move to my passport culture, a country I hadn’t lived in for 20 years, was littered with pain and grief. I felt the physical ache in my heart as […]
New language goals!
You might remember how down I was on New Year’s resolutions in 2015. I didn’t set any goals at the beginning of last year other than the resolve to just […]
2015: Top 5 Inspiring Books
Happy New Year 2016, friends! May your year be filled with meaning, marked by joy in your relationships, and surrounded in peace. Thank you for reading my reflections over the […]
November unplugged
Here are a few snapshots from our challenge to get outside each day in November. This was our second year participating. Such a fun way of being intentional about staying […]
Pregnant! Now what?!
Isn’t it such a great thing that we were given a full 9+ months to prepare for the babies that end up in our arms? Even third time round, it […]
Freefall to Fly
A few months back, I wrote a review of the novel Americanah because of its rich layers and interwoven themes: Immigration, The Third Culture, Cross-cultural living. Books must really be of […]
Language-learning: an alive, natural, changing process
When I first thought about this month’s Multilingual Carnival topic on “lost languages“, I didn’t think we had all that much to share. Our kids are all under four years […]
When kids aren’t a distraction to your calling…
I plucked up the courage to leave my chaotic and needy small humans to invest into my future at Influence Conf this month. The time away was such a gift […]
On race, immigration and love: Americanah
Introducing a book that depicts life pretty accurately on three continents and unpacks the sensitive subject of race in a relatively non-judgmental fashion. It’s a book that also humanizes the […]
Beyond Skype: let’s stay in touch!
8264km / 5135miles. That is the closest I have lived to my parents in the past seven years. In the meantime, we’ve had children that can walk, talk, communicate. Despite […]
Little language vignettes
After picking up a collection of short stories on clearance at a bookstore earlier this year, I rediscovered a wealth of beauty in the novella. That seemingly random purchase taught […]
“They’re gonna hate you for it”
I have been grateful for so many encouraging comments and emails about traveling with small kids, multilingualism, and cross-cultural living on social media. Then, almost out of nowhere, this one […]
On saying goodbye
Saying goodbye is nothing foreign to expats, Third Culture Kids or highly mobile people. Sadly, though, many of us are known for being quite poor with our farewells. We may […]
Adventures in China with small kids
Not so many Western families travel to China with young kids for a vacation. That was the first thing that struck us as we flew to Shanghai a few weeks […]
Bilingual Avenue Podcast
I am really honored to feature on this week’s episode of Bilingual Avenue, a weekly podcast with insightful tips and advice from language experts and normal parents like us, raising […]
“H” is for…Humility
“I’m going to China, where are you going, Grammie?” Ayo asked last week as if nothing were. I didn’t think much of it at the time but it really marked […]
When in France and when artists write kids’ books
“Maman!! Un livre sur les toins!!” cried my son at the top of his lungs as he discovered a gorgeous detailed fold out “twain” book at my parents’ village library. […]
Sibling dynamics in multilingualism
Choosing and implementing a language strategy with your first child is often more straightforward than when the next child comes along. We generally speak more to our first-borns, we spend […]
Good grief.
Late last night, I mustered up the courage to flick through my old blog that accompanied me like a best friend from graduate school, outlasting even my first two real […]
Learn about Asia through crafts & activities!
Today, I have the immense honor to host the March Multicultural Kids Blog carnival on the topic of Asian crafts and activities. In fact, I am posting this on my […]
Beautiful multicultural books for children
Take a quick tour of the children’s classics in Anglo-Saxon literature and you will see a glaring predominance of Caucasian protagonists. I don’t feel it is wrong to feature white […]
The school question
Over the past couple of years, as parents of older kids discussed preschool, my eyes would glaze over. We have time, and we won’t be living in the United States […]
Expecting a multilingual baby!
What a life-altering experience it is to welcome a first baby into your home. Like many first time mamas who find themselves in this age of information overload, I felt […]
What? I’m not calling them “maids”!
It started with a whole lot of tension and ended with a whole lot of compromise. It climbed hills of heartache but led to a lush land of so much […]
Ditching Brittany
I sat in my favorite solid wooden chair at our kitchen table and stared out the window. Many an “aha” moment has come to me on this comforting chair with […]
Be.
You know you are getting older when you get all negative about setting New Year’s resolutions. It’s kind of sad when you lose that youthful trust in humanity and in […]
The time I almost missed Christmas
We all have hopes and longings for our children. We want them to learn to crawl, to walk, to talk. We want them to care for others, to be bridge-builders, […]
That global vs. local tension
A friend of mine recently sent me a message with a question that got me thinking. He asked me how I developed a hunger for both local and global experiences, […]
Advent around the world
Living in Germany first gave me an insight into the craft of the homemade advent calendar. Ten years ago, a German friend of mine showed me a perfectly engineered cardboard […]
Bilingualism: 3 Myths
It is amazing how much unsolicited and unfounded advice you receive when you expose your children to multiple languages. These misconceptions often come from individuals who never had a bilingual […]
Inside the frame
After the kids’ naps, we brought them outside to lounge with us four adults outside on this spectacular October afternoon in the Vallée Verte. My parents, Tall Mountain and I […]
Lullabies of the World
Looking for peaceful lullabies that you will like / won’t drive you totally bonkers when played over and over in the car? Check! On the hunt for lullabies from all […]
This gift of diversity
How desperately, do I want to teach our kids to be lovers of this world. Interesting then, when it actually came to inviting the so-called ‘world’ into our home (without us […]
River rock
Blogging conundrum. How do I move forward? Not writer’s block. More like ‘blocked by a waterfall of transformational thoughts’. Thoughts, triggering realizations so life-changing that so many of my earlier […]