The day they asked me to speak to them in different languages
Some of our family’s best conversations happen around the dinner table. I’ll reassure you, some of our worst happen there too. Dinner in a home of young ones is a […]
parenting
World-schooling… without the camper van!
There’s a LOT of buzz in my circles around “world-schooling”. While definitions differ, most people use the term world-schooling to talk about using the world as your school. World-schooling families […]
When cross-cultural kids are rejected by their own family
From this side of the ocean, I don’t have a chip on my shoulder. Those little moments of laughter or mimicking or side comments are natural and usually not out […]
10 signs you are (more) at home in your new country… (phew!!)
For quite some time, we will recall the immense strain of our family’s recent move across continents, from Colorado, USA to a village in the Rhône-Alpes in France. The process […]
Why you are unfit to mother, why ADHD doesn’t exist in France (and other BS)
You’ve seen the viral articles on the web. “European vs. American parenting: You may be embarrassed!” “Why African Toddlers Don’t Have Tantrums!” Well intended observations being morphed into gross, shame-on-you […]
Where do I belong? The early years.
Could my young children already be wrestling with their cultural identity? In preschool?? As with many profound reflections, this one came about at the table, where precious friends asked us […]
Making friends in a new land
It takes time to develop friendships, you know, the non Facebook type. Local folks have often made their own group of trusted friends over the years. Expatriates are usually the […]
Calming the Rage
Papa was on a trip again and the endless day had finally come to a close. I watched the clock closely for the first possible chance to begin our bedtime […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Hope for this weary mama
Two lanky girls stumbled into the coffee shop. One following the other. They both wore glasses. Their gait was either demonstrative of high intelligence or the insecurity that comes with […]
Mama thoughts at TWO!
We have a two year old! We once marveled at our infant boy’s mini features, wondering who he would become. Today, we already have glimpses of who this little boy […]
Pregnancy 2.0
In case you haven’t gathered from various social media sites or missed the subtle change from “child” to “children” in the blog description, I am 21 weeks pregnant with bébé numéro […]
For the birth geeks!
Here is an interview between Future Midwives of America and Aubre Tompkins (CNM, MSN), who is the clinical director of Mountain Midwifery Center. Aubre explains some of the joys of […]
Maisons & Maternage
You’d think there would be birth centers all over France. Natural birth advocate Michel Odent, is, after all French! This report on last night’s 8pm TF1 news shows that maisons […]
Bringing up Ayo
You know a book is popular when you are 67th on the library’s waiting list for one of the 60 available copies. After waiting nearly three months to secure my […]