Return to America, Part 1

I've written this post over and over, erased it, walked away, came back and tried again, only to walk away again for months. I've been trying to store things away in my head for when the time came that I was ready to blog again. This process of repatriating , returning back to America, was more difficult and emotional than I ever could have anticipated. But now I'm going to try and share some of my thoughts and experiences of returning back to America after living abroad for 4 1/2 years.

In late January, Dan defended his PhD, we sold most of our belongings and put the other 15 boxes on a ship, packed up the two kids (and the one still baking in the oven), said goodbye to all of our friends and caught a plane back to America. The first few weeks were spent adjusting to the time change, introducing the kids to family and friends, and figuring out where we could buy decent bread and coffee(9 months later and still searching). Only the two grandma's had ever met Jonas and he was 1.5! The first few weeks were hectic but exciting as people were glad we were back and we were glad to see everyone and just rest a bit after a crazy last few months in The Netherlands. It  was after the first month that we started to struggle with things.

The kids were in car seats consistently for the first time. Every time we left to go somewhere, Ellie would get upset and say she wanted to walk, NOT ride in the car. We were thrown for a loop every everytime we went to the grocery store. SO.MANY.OPTIONS. Plus I knew what to look for in my old grocery stores back in Holland, but here it was like I was in a foreign country. I am just now getting to where I can mentally handle Costco. I mean, my mindset had been changed from shopping for a week or more to shopping for every few days because my fridge could only hold so much (remember that time in our first apt we had a dorm sized square refrigerator??). I once drove around for way longer than I should have, trying to find a mailbox, all the while trying to remember if they even still had free standing post boxes in America and if they delivered mail on Mondays (they didn't in The Netherlands).  Um, also, because Holland did away with checks before we arrived, I have forgotten how to write checks, so there's that.

(This is a picture of our first kitchen. Our refrigerator was in one of the cabinets on the bottom. You can see our shopping dilemma.)




I have a ton of stories about crazy cultural things that threw me for a loop. But the hardest thing was the emotional turmoil of thinking that I should know these things, America is my country. I should be able to transition seamlessly back into a city where I spent way more time than 4.5 years. Why was I having trouble remembering where mailboxes were in the city? Why was my English grammar something akin to my toddler's? Why was I regretting not taking more holiday's to other European countries? (ok that's an easy one to figure out:) ) Why was I still using the word "holiday"??

It was hard to talk with people about living there because everyone seemed to expect us to just be super happy that we were back. And we were happy to be back but also we really missed our life back there too. People would say, "Oh you must be so thrilled to be back for good!" and we would sort of smile, half nod and say, " Well, we are but also it's hard sometimes". What we didn't always say was, " We have missed our family and America will always be the greatest country to us BUT we started our life together there when we moved over 10 days after getting married. Our first home was there, two of our children were born there, we left friends who became like family to us and we overcame crazy obstacles together. that you can only understand when you pack up your stuff and move to a foreign country."

 When we would look at pictures or talk about some of our experiences, it just sounded really pretentious, so we didn't. Talking about going to Italy or driving to Paris for a weekend sounds really snooty if you don't understand that from The Netherlands, doing either of those things is a ton cheaper than a week long trip to Florida from Missouri. The first time we had a visitor from The Netherlands come visit us, we soaked up that time talking about life back there and our repatriation process. He had done the whole process once before so it was nice to have some validation that our feelings weren't crazy.

Another really difficult thing that I didn't fully expect was the relational aspect. When we came back, life had gone on. Our friends had lives and we really weren't a part of it anymore. Dan was knee deep in job searching so it didn't bother him as much as it did me, who needed things to do while 7 months pregnant with 2 toddlers. Everything had changed, we had changed and we had no idea where we fit anymore. The Netherlands was no longer home but America didn't feel like home either. It didn't help that we had no place of our own yet. We will always be incredibly grateful to our families for allowing us to stay with them during this time, but it definitely makes it harder to "settle" back in when all of our possession are still in boxes in the basement.

It's been a tough transition for more reasons that just moving countries but there have also been some amazing things about moving back, which I'll write about in Part 2.

It's so hard, to say Goodbye. . .

Newlyweds in The Netherlands is the name of this blog I started when I got engaged and learned we were moving to The Netherlands. I was about to embark on a journey that would turn out to be the greatest adventure of my life so far. Now, almost 4.5 years later, this adventure is drawing to a close and we are returning back to America at the end of January, no longer newlyweds and as a family of 4 (to be 5 in June) with a lifetime of memories and experiences that I'm not sure we'll get again. It's funny to think that when we moved here, I wasn't sure how we were going to make it. I mean, ride a bike everywhere? in snow and rain? with a child? with TWO children? Nope, nope, nope. Function on a daily basis where English is not the native language? Where I can't read grocery labels, understand the cashiers at the checkout, or read basic road signs to tell me I'm about to get hit by a truck because I'm biking in the wrong lane? Nope,nope, nope. Try for the life of me to figure out where to fit all of my groceries in my dorm size refrigerator or understand how I could possibly eat eggs that were not refrigerated? Nope, nope, nope.

Amazingly, we made it. In fact, we didn't only make it, we made it Home. We learned and adapted and decided we were brave enough to try having a child here. And when they sent us home 4 hours after giving birth to that baby, a few months later we decided we were brave enough to have a second child here, in which we were sent home 3 hours after he was born. We decided we would do as the Dutch do and ride our bikes with our children on them. . .without helmets. We've survived without a car for the entire time we were here, although I will be happy if I never have to get on a bus with two children again.

We learned how to become husband and wife here, how to be parents. We've figured out how to navigate a different culture while also adopting parts of it to our own. We've learned to love our nationality even more but to also appreciate the differences of other nationalities. The world has become smaller to us now because we have friends from all over and traveling and experiencing different countries and cultures has become something we value.

Friends and family have been asking us if we are excited to be moving back to America and honestly, that's a hard question to answer. Of course we are excited to be closer to family and friends but this has become our home. I never would've thought that possible 4.5 years when we stepped off that airplane into the land of tulips and windmills. I never imagined the thought of returning back to America would make me nervous and sad. I never thought I'd be more comfortable with the idea of bike seats than car seats (although let's be honest, I'm super excited about not having to bike in torrential downpours while trying to shield my children from the hail). I never thought I'd be nervous about giving birth in America, but now I have no idea what to expect. I'd never thought I'd be nervous about being a parent in America, but I am. Life in The Netherlands has become our life.

2015 is going to be a year of transition. It's going to be a year of finding our niche as a family, figuring out what life looks like as a family. It's going to be exciting and full of challenges and we've done it before but at least this time we'll have a full sized fridge.

Today I was a yeller

This morning I decided we were going to go to the store because naturally, even though we spent 30 euros two days before on groceries, we had no food. It looked like it could rain anytime but I really wanted to take the bike so we could get there fast and get home.The morning had already consisted of some whining, a teething baby who I was finally able to coax to sleep with some teething medicine, and a few episodes of Little Einsteins so I could get the kitchen cleaned. I got the kids ready and then had to get myself ready, which was not acceptable to either child. Ellie kept opening the front door, turning around saying "ok ready? ok ready? mama bike? Ellie bike?" Jonas was making himself heard. Before I could get over to lock the door, Ellie had managed to get her finger stuck and somehow also scrape Jonas's leg with the door. Commence crying and wailing from both kids. I calm them both down and continued to gather all the 101 things you need for a short outing. Ellie continued to get frustrated because she could no longer open the door and Jonas was just mad.  Finally, after more and more whining, crying, and tantrumming, I yelled. I yelled, "MAMA NEEDS 2 MINUTES TO GET READY AND A LITTLE QUIET TO THINK!" If you're wondering if that helped to calm them down, it didn't. Did I feel a tiiiiny bit better? Maybe just a little bit.

 Finally. . . finally we are all ready and I scoop up Jonas and carry him downstairs with Ellie trailing behind. Thankfully, my sweet husband had left my bike out in the storage hallway so I didn't have to maneuver it out of our storage room. It's still quite an adventure to get both kids on, the door open (because of course it's a door that has to be held open or it slams shut on your heels...don't ask me how I know that) and get the bike out. But we make it and the kid's shrieks of joy as we head outside, make the little struggle worth it. So we bike to the store and I'm thinking to myself, "Ah this is nice! and so much faster than walking with the stroller!" But I know the more difficult part lies ahead.

We arrive at the store and I finagle both kids off the bike, while it's sandwiched between two other bikes in a very narrow bike rack (narrow if you're trying to get two kids off the bike anyways). I didn't have the correct change to unlock the cart from the other carts (which, seriously, no one wants to steal your stupid carts. Is it really necessary to lock them?!) so a cashier gave me a token to use. After messing with it for 5-6 minutes, in which time I'm holding a squirming 10 month old and Ellie has found her little cart and keeps trying to go into the main store and I'm trying to redirect her to wait for me, I end up breaking the token. I call over the cashier and she has to hunt down tools to get the token out and get the cart unlocked for me. By this time I'm sweating from wrestling with Jonas, chasing after Ellie, and a little embarrassed  from trying to get the stupid token out of the cart and then breaking it. I plop Jonas in the cart and off we go. The shopping itself was pretty good, except for Ellie dropping some pre-made wraps on the floor and me stuffing them on a shelf because I couldn't find a worker anywhere to give them to. I'm frazzled and can't really remember what we need but keep throwing stuff in the cart, mentally trying to imagine how it will all fit in my bag I had to carry home on my shoulder. We checkout and Ellie attempts to push herself through the line of people saying, "WATCH OUT!" as she tries to get through. That's really my fault because I say that to her at home when I'm trying to move around her. We're working on using excuse me. After "helping" Ellie to put her cart back, while she was trying to get out two more, and then packing the kids on the bike, I realized that my bag is freaking heavy and I have to carry home.

By the time we get home, there is a light mist, both babies are hungry and I still have to maneuver the bike into the storage shed, get both kids off without tipping over the bike, and get upstairs. I get Ellie off the bike first and tell her not to go outside (because the heavy door is still propped open). She meanders around a minute and then I see her slowly making her way to the door. I can't get to her right away because I'm still holding the bike, trying to get it to stay in place while I get Jonas off the front. I grab Jonas, my bike falls halfway over as I apparently didn't wedge it in right. I give it a shove back the other way and it stays put, but my husband will definitely have to rearrange it if he wants to fit his bike in. Ellie is standing outside the door. I yell...again... "ELEANOR ANNE!INSIDE!NOW!". I'm pondering what I can do because I can't very well sit her in timeout on the dirty floor. So I make her hold my hand up to our apartment. She is not happy about this and frankly neither am I, as now I am holding her hand, have Jonas on my other hip, and still carrying a freaking heavy bag of groceries on my shoulder. She is sitting herself down in the hall because she is mad about holding my hand. I kneel down in front of her and tell her that she must walk to our door like a big girl and once inside she can let go of mommy's hand but if she cannot walk, she will have to go to timeout. She decides walking is the better option here. I manage to get everyone and everything inside and start unpacking the groceries. Still frustrated,  I drop the box of strawberries on the floor and they all go everywhere. I let out what might be described as a primal, gutteral, moan of exasperation...that pretty went on for a full 15-20 seconds. I see Ellie looking at me, unsure of what to make of this new, animal sounding mama, so I go with that and say, "Ellie, look, mama's sounding like an elephant". She doesn't buy it but luckily the site of strawberries strewn across the floor distract her enough for me to catch my cool.  I turn away and take a few deep breaths and then lean down to pick up the strawberries. Both kids have handfuls and are stuffing them in their mouth like it's the only food they've seen in days. I don't even care.Dirty floor? Leafy stems? Don't care, eat the whole thing. And they did.

All of this happened in a span of an hour. ONE HOUR. Some days are just like this. Some days the deep breaths, the calming voice, the controlled patience, just doesn't quite make it out 100%. My kids are fantastic kids! They are not super challenging beyond just their normal age craziness. But it's exhausting trying to raise good kids. It's exhausting being consistent with discipline. It's exhausting just doing normal, everyday tasks like taking a trip to the store.

 I have read the blogs about how much yelling can affect your children. I have read the "tips for remaining calm and patient with your toddler". I receive the emails about "child-led discipline" (what does that even mean? Because if I'm a child, I can tell you right now that my "discipline" is going to lead me right back to whatever it is I wanted to do in the first place). I sometimes wonder if these articles are written by people who have never had children or whose children are grown and forget what it's like to be in throes of toddler-hood. I read all these "tips" and still some days, let's be honest, a lot of days, I'm just trying to stay afloat on my life raft as my almost 1 and almost 2 year olds keep dunking me under. Most days I can keep my calm, discipline well, and repeat the same thing 100 times without getting too annoyed. But not today...no, today friends, I was a yeller.

On the lighter side...

So, even though my last post made it sound like everything is doom and gloom (and let's be honest, it pretty much was for the last several months), there is also a lot of exciting things happening in our life.  I'm a fan of lists (plus with 2 small children, it's faster and more efficient :) ) so here's a list of happenings in our life; past, present, and future.

1. Both kids are happy and thriving and doing different stuff every day. Ellie's language is just exploding and she cracks us up on a daily basis. Jonas is right on the verge of crawling. He can move himself around but has just started getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth and then lunging himself forward. It's hard to believe he is 6 months today.

2. We have dear friends coming in 2 weeks. I'm so excited to spend time with these friends, that I cannot contain it! It's been over 2 years since we've seen them.

3. Speaking of them coming, that also means in a little over 2 weeks, I'll be sitting in London with my friend, drinking high tea, paparazzing the royals, and getting uninterrupted sleep for the first time in 6 months. I'm excited to see London but I'm more excited to have 2 days of kid-free, girl time. Also, this will totally be me...and if you don't know what this is, I'm not sure we're really friends.

4. After we come back from London, we leave a few days after that for Mallorca, Spain. Our family, their family, and another friend have all rented a Spanish villa for a week and plan to spend our days soaking up the sun and drinking Spanish wine.

5. Dan is plugging full steam ahead to finish up his PhD. Which means we are also in full job searching mode. This is an exciting, yet scary time.

6. Since Dan is finishing up, it means we should be back stateside in the fall!!! It's hard to believe we've been here almost 4 years! We left as newlyweds with 7 suitcases to our name and will come back with 2 kids, a ton more stuff, and memories that will stay with us forever.

A lot of changes are headed our way but we're excited to see where our next adventure will lead us. I'm going to try and stay on top of blogging but you know how that goes so we'll see:)

An honest account

Deep Breath.

This has been a long, tough season. After my last post, things continued to spiral downward. Jonas got better (diagnosed with a milk allergy, put on special formula and VOILA! a new , happy, cooing, laughing, child!) but I continued to feel sad, angry, joyless, overwhelmed, etc.

I knew that I wasn't feeling like myself. I kept chalking it up to having a screaming baby and a young toddler, with no family support around. But things kept getting worse, even as Jonas got better and I had two happy kids. Dan and I would have huge arguments over crazy, ridiculous things and I would feel out of control.If I wasn't angry, I was crying. I had zero desire to do anything fun-wanted a break from the kids but didn't really want to do anything. My house was a disaster and I hadn't cooked a decent meal in months. Something was not OK.

I worked in mental health long enough to know that I had all the signs and symptoms of Post Partum depression. Part of me was briefly in denial and just wanted to keep waiting for my hormones to regulate again. But the larger part of me knew that I wasn't ok and needed to do something about it before I drove myself, my husband, and my kids, crazy. I thought about going on some medication but decided first that I wanted to try counseling. I felt like my hormones were still trying to regulate from the birth and I didn't want to throw new chemicals in there. I was/am in no way opposed to medication and felt that if I continued to get worse, I would go on them in a heartbeat but I wanted to try talking with someone first. I made a counseling appointment and went with a feeling of desperation but also with a glimmer of hope.

My counselor was/is fantastic. She helped me to see that it was ok to be depressed and more importantly, to need help. For those who know me, I'm more the helper, not the helpee...hence my work in social work:) But I was so desperate to get back to being me and to bring back a sense of peace to our house, that I didn't care who I told or asked for help.

One of the more difficult aspects of this time was being away from friends and family. We had a couple wonderful friends help us with watching the kids a few times and that was a great blessing.  But I needed more. I needed time to breathe, to think, to journal, to pray, to shower, etc. And had we been closer to family, it would've made that a lot easier. However, we are getting through it.

I feel so much better, especially over the last few weeks. I feel like myself again. I kept telling my counselor that I just wanted to hurry up and get better faster and one of the best things she told me was just to accept where I'm at, to realize I am where I am and to just be. I think that advice helped me to fully accept that I was depressed. I am taking steps to overcome it but for the time being, this is where I'm at and that's ok.

Only for a Season. . .hopefully

Well, we are a little over 2 months in to this 2 babies 14 months apart deal and I can honestly say it's one of the hardest things I've ever done. I've put off writing this until I could start to see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope that I'm not jinxing it now.

These last 2 months have been TOUGH. Ridiculously tough. I knew that there would be sleepless nights and exhausting days but what I wasn't prepared for was a baby who cried. . . a lot. I wasn't prepared for the extreme feelings of being alone, because we had no family around (after our moms left).  I wasn't prepared for the daily feelings of "I cannot do this one more day". I wasn't prepared for the amount of tears that would fall (of mine!) on a daily, sometimes multiple times a day in those early day, basis.  I wasn't prepared to feel like I was inept as a mother because I felt like we were barely surviving each day.

Jonas had a rough delivery (as did I, let's not leave my efforts out here:) ) and from the time he was placed on my chest, he was a crier. He cried for about 30 minutes after delivery, although I can't say I blame the poor kid. He has had terrible gas and also some reflux issues. This has resulted in him having long, loud, crying spells for several hours a day. Call it colic, call it stomach cramps, call it whatever you want but it's miserable. I felt bad for him because I knew he was in pain. I felt bad for Ellie because I would sometimes be short with her because I was so overwhelmed. I felt bad for me and Dan because we were about at our wit's end. Talks with the doctors didn't help, just sympathetic looks as I held my screaming baby and tried to wrangle my toddler. Comments from people about how "heavy" it all must be on me and how it will get better were not helpful.

I found it hard to bond with him early on because of all the crying. I breastfed for the first month but found no real bonding moments in those times. I know everyone says it takes about a month to really establish breastfeeding but a little before a month is when my mom left and I was left to try and breastfeed a screaming baby and take care of Ellie on my own. It was too much.  I quit and have had no regrets. It's just been in the last few weeks where I felt like we've been able to start bonding a little. He's more alert, smiling and cooing, and crying less. I found it hard to bond with a baby when all he does is sleep, eat, and scream.

I worried that something was wrong with him. As hard as I tried not to, I compared him to how Ellie was as a baby. I convinced myself multiple times that something must be wrong with him because he was crying so much and seemed unaware of anything around him. Ellie came out of the womb alert, checking out her surroundings, resting peacefully on my chest. I knew in my head that babies are all different...that boys and girls are different but I just wasn't prepared for just how different they were. My boy seems to have every minor thing wrong with him that you can have! He had a clogged tear duct for the first few weeks, cradle cap on his head and forehead, a flat spot on his head and a preference for looking to one side(which, funnily enough is not the side he has a flat spot on) and has started physical therapy. They initially thought something was wrong with his hips but looks like now those are ok. His gas is worse than an adult's and when we switched his formula to one that helps with cramps, he broke out in a rash all over his body. You know your son has had it rough when the days he has been the happiest are the day he was circumcised and the day after.

But it's not all doom and gloom. I would say that we have more good days than bad days now. My husband is not getting daily phone calls at work with me in tears and screaming babies in the background. Jonas is crying a lot less and when he does cry, the majority of the time he is able to be calmed down quickly, especially if I can hold him. He is smiling, recognizing our voices and faces, rolling over from stomach to back, and has really seem to come alive in the last 2 weeks. The one thing that Jonas and Ellie do have in common is that they are both great sleepers. They both go to bed about the same time, Jonas is waking up once about 1am or 2am to eat and then goes right back to sleep until 7ish. This past weekend, we moved him out of his bassinet in our room and into his crib in Ellie's room and it's gone great. They both sleep through each other's noises and wake ups. So for sleep, I am infinitely grateful because I'm pretty sure I would be writing this from a mental institution if his sleep was horrible.

I hope we are starting to emerge from the heavy, heavy fog that was the newborn stage. Maybe we are just getting to know him better, maybe he's starting to feel better, maybe it's none of that and we really have no clue but whatever is happening, I hope it continues.

To other moms out there who have gone before me in this adventure...people should be paying you the big bucks and slapping medals on you left and right. To moms who are currently in the trenches with me or about to be, I won't tell you that it will get better (although allegedly it will) because that's not helpful right now. But I will tell you that it's ok to cry...a lot. It's ok to share your struggles with people. It's ok to ask for help. It's ok to love your baby but not really like them some days . It's ok to put them down (someplace safe) while they're screaming and walk to a different part of the house where you can't hear them for just a few minutes so you can think straight without the ringing of crying in your ears. It's ok if the one thing you accomplished that day is going to the store without having a major meltdown...from the you or the baby! Things are super hard now but every night, after a hard day, I would think, "tomorrow is a new day". It may be a better or worse day but each day is new and before you know it, you've made it through some of the toughest times and life slowly returns to normal...for a few years anyways.

But the next time I talk about having another baby before these 2 are out of the house, slap me. ;)

Circumcision in a foreign country

Today we took Jonas to get circumcised. I write this blog, not to debate circumcision but to share more about the differences in raising kids in a foreign country.

When we found out we were having a boy, we knew that circumcision was going to be an issue because unlike in the States, most men in Europe (and much of the world for that matter) are not circumcised. It is not a standard procedure in the hospital after birth. So I started asking around, starting with my midwife and then the OB at the hospital where I planned on delivering. The OB told me that it was "impossible" in The Netherlands. Well, I knew that wasn't true because we had some other American friends who had their son circumcised a few years back so I challenged the doctor on that. He then started backpedaling, saying that it was possible but he didn't know where and that maybe we would need to talk to a urologist. He also said that they wouldn't do it at birth and we'd probably have to wait several months. Obviously this guy was not supportive of circumcision or of our decision. We decided at that point that the doctor was a dead end and that google would be a better source than this guy. So long story short, I talked to my friends who had it done and then found the place online.

Fast forward to today. Jonas is 6 weeks old, which still seemed a little too old for our comfort but this was the soonest we could get the appointment. This office only does circumcisions and caters mainly to muslims and jewish people. This office was in Amsterdam and we arrived late due to the trains running behind. It was basically like a doctor's office in the bottom of an apartment complex. At this point, I was still unsure if I was going to go in for the actual procedure or wait in the waiting room. I finally decided that I would, because I wanted to be there to comfort Jonas if he needed it. We get called back and the doctor introduces himself and asks if we have ever witnessed a circumcision before. Dan breaks the ice by saying, "only my own", to which we all laugh and the doctor says he hopes he doesn't really remember it. I forgot until later that I actually have witnessed a circumcision before...two actually. A co-worker during a summer internship in college gave birth to twin boys and she was jewish and somehow I was invited to the ceremony. But that is really irrelevant to this story.

The doctor was very kind and explained everything he was going to do, at which points Jonas would cry and also told us that it could be a little traumatizing for parents, especially because they have to strap Jonas down to the table. After he explained the procedure, he then asked if Dan would prefer to hold Jonas down instead of strapping him so we decided to do that since Dan felt comfortable he could keep Jonas still. The procedure started with the doctor administering some local anesthetic via a few shots. This is one of the times throughout the procedure that he warned us Jonas would cry. And he did...poor guy. But as soon as the last shot was done, Jonas was done crying. It was super weird to me how quickly he stopped crying, until later when Dan pointed out that he was probably numb, hence no more pain from the injection. Jonas cried one other time during it, basically when the doctor was pulling the foreskin back, because he had to apply some pressure but I was able to give him a bottle and then he was fine. There was no crying during any of the actual removal and Jonas was just looking around, holding my hand. The whole procedure took about 5 minutes and then we were done! Jonas was calm and happy and cries more whenever he's hungry than he did during this.

The doctor explained to us that it's much better to get it done early on, for the child's sake. It's typically less painful and they have a much faster recovery time. He said that there is also less likely a chance of an infection in children this small. In fact, he said he's never had or heard of a child under 2 months developing an infection from this procedure. He told us to give him some baby tylenol every 4 hours and that within 2-3 days, everything should be healed up and back to normal. He is on call 24/7 for the first 48 hours in case any sort of complications were to arise.

It's now 5:00am the next morning (his procedure was at 11am the day before) and he's had a better day than he's had all week! No crying, sleeping as usual and we haven't given him anymore tylenol in the last 12 hours. Overall, it went great despite it seeming a little weird that it wasn't done in the hospital, right after birth and that we were both present for it and even active participants.

Just another adventure in the life of an American living abroad!