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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
“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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]