Where the heart is

We've been parents for a whole year now - it's been a year of awesomeness.  Most of that year has been spent living abroad, in 2 countries no less.  As we navigate expat living, we are making a conscious effort to make sure we have strong roots in family, traditions, and an idea about what "home" means.  Yes, our daughter is only one, and yes, she won't remember this early stuff, but we are setting the tone for what living overseas looks like for our family.

How are we doing this?  It's definitely a work in progress but here's what we've got so far:

1.  Spend time in the Portland area, what we consider our "home" - when we talk about home, we want Tegan to have connections there.  It may not be what she considers home, but she'll know what we're talking about.

Oregon zoo

2. Have consistent traditions - it's easy to have events and celebrations be different each year when you are abroad, we're making an effort to set things in place that can be the same each year.

Birthdays, St. Patrick's Day, Sunday morning breakfast - all important traditions

3.  Have relationships with extended family - we skype a lot with family, and we're creating a book this Christmas break with everyone's picture in it so while we are in Nepal Tegan can look through it.  I also like the idea of reading night time books over skype as well as recording people reading books aloud to play when we can't skype.

Skyping with her uncle

4.  Have things in our home that are the same no matter where we go - pictures, decorations, special books and toys

5.  Story-telling - we want Tegan to know about the places she's lived, where we are from, who has been a part of her life.  We have books from the countries, pictures, our blog - all to record memories of her life experience and we will tell her stories of the parts of her life she doesn't remember.

6.  Read about and discuss with other families Third Culture Kid issues - I deal with this a lot in my job as a school counselor but of course things are always different when it's your own family.

These things will inevitably be adapted and change as Tegan grows up, but isn't that really what living abroad is all about?  Learning.  Being flexible.  Change.  But within that constant state of flux, we want everyone in our family to feel grounded, both in tangible and intangible ways.

If other families have recommendations about how they do this we would love to hear them!

Simply adorable

We went to a 1st birthday this weekend, and this little cutie was rocking the best tutu ever:

Before, after and another year wiser

Jeremiah's hair has been getting long, really long. When it dries the right way in the morning you can't really tell how long it is because of how curly it is, but when he gets home from school and messes it up, or wakes up on the weekend it looks like this:

Now granted, this is especially "froofed" for the camera and to demonstrate just how long it had gotten (and he would never go to work with it like this), but many times after school or on the weekends during the last few weeks he'd come out of another room looking like this. (These pictures scream "mug shot", don't they?)

Jeremiah goes back and forth with his hair often. He likes it long, then doesn't like it, likes it short, then he doesn't. I see why his dad was so quick to hand the job of Jeremiah's barber over to me. I don't mind cutting his hair though because we made a deal that I get a pair of shoes every time I cut his hair.

After some debate lately of whether to do it or not, he told me to cut it before he changed his mind again.
And now I get to go shopping for my next pair of shoes!


On another Jeremiah note: this week he turned 28! Luckily for me, Jeremiah is an easy going guy who appreciates thoughfulness and originality. I say luckily, because this birthday was a little different than our normal birthday festivities in the states. First, on my end shopping was much harder. We don't give each other big gifts for birthdays, but all my standbys were hard to get here (Wii games bought here don't work in our system, clothes fit differently so I can't pick them out for him, he doesn't really have a hobby here yet ). I also don't have a store I can go to and know I will find something. I ended up going to a pretty big mall and getting lost, which was embarrassing because when you are the only white person people notice when you go by the same store 5 times.

The cake was another obstacle. At home I would bake a vegan cake for him - but we don't have an oven or vegan baking supplies. Nor can you go out and buy vegan desserts (well, maybe you can but I don't know where to do that). So, I went on a mission to find whatever vegan treats I could find. I ended up building a "cake" out of cookies and some make-shift frosting to hold it together. In the end, with a big "Happy Birthday" sign, some Taiwan-fab gifts, a unique (to say the least) cake, and a surprise dinner with a bunch of our teacher friends, I think it was a successful birthday!