Our version of the "Pumpkin Patch" trip

We went to the market to find some pumpkins today. It's not quite the same experience as we have at home, but we came away with pumpkins that will serve their purpose.

Inside shoes

While we often go barefoot around the house, sometimes we wear our shoes. Tegan's first statement is always "mom, why do you have your outside shoes on inside"? At school, with her didi (nanny), at playgroups, she is surrounded by people who have a separate pair of shoes only for wearing inside. Indeed, she has a pair at school and at home - she picked the ones with Hello Kitty on them (she was born in Asia after all).

When I explained that not so many people have inside shoes in America where we grew up, she quite confidently made the connection - "Like, Grandpa always wears his outside shoes inside but my didi always wears inside shoes".

Cross-cultural understandings start young.

Transitions

Long layover in Dubai

I love the culture shock of coming home.  Even better this year is watching Tegan's culture shock.  Some of the things that have gotten us this time around:

-drinking from the tap!
-eating fruits and veggies uncooked and not peeled without soaking and cleaning - and not still worrying about what is still living on it despite all the precautions
-hot water from the sink (and the shower, 100% of the time!)
-shopping carts - what a fun discovery for little miss (at one point today we used four different ones: T sized, normal, mini, and one with a plastic car hooked to it)
-driving - we both did it for the first time since Christmas break, luckily for my mother-in-law's car it's just like riding a bike
-bread, cheese, mexican food, and beer (for J)
-so much English, Tegan is picking up words left and right
-fall weather in June

Celebrating Chinese New Year

After celebrating Chinese New Year for the last 3 years, we wanted to do something for the occasion even though it's not celebrated here (though Tibetan New Year is I guess, next year we'll look into that).  

We started our day at Namo Buddha with mountains and "xīn nián kuài lè" (happy new year). Not a bad place to start your day!

When we got back home we did some stuff around the house that reminded us of Taiwan.  We had our New Years posters up, including the one from the year of the rabbit when Tegan was born.  We looked at some books we have in Chinese (this one is from Mo Willem's series Elephant and Piggy) and the book I made Tegan about being born and living in Taiwan.  We listened to a children's New Year song on YouTube and finally ended the day with a red envelope (I had to make out of Nepali paper because I forgot to bring them from the states with me, but the red fish paper was fitting I thought).

It all wasn't quite the same, and we missed amazing meals we've had with friends in the past (and I'm afraid to admit I in particular have been missing the cheesey 7-11 New Year characters and gimmicks - Hello Kitty anyone??) but we had a wonderful day none-the-less.

Happy year of the snake everyone!

Learning Nepali

Out of the three people in our little family, one of us is doing an amazing job learning Nepali, the other 2 know only a word here or there.  The best Nepali learner award goes to: Tegan!  Granted, she doesn't really speak a whole lot yet, but she certainly understands what her nanny says to her.

Jeremiah and I have discussed and thought about language for Tegan and our family.  There are a lot of questions.  We're in Nepal for who knows how long?  Nepali is certainly not a common world language, will she ever use it in the future?  Is it confusing to her now as she is developing English and baby sign language?  Will she continue when she starts school or switch to a language commonly offered in international schools if/when we move again?  What do we want for her in terms of being multilingual?

We've decided learning Nepali now, regardless of how she is able to use it in the future, only has benefits for her language and brain development.  We will re-evaluate her languages when she starts school and think long-term about adding languages for academic and communication purposes. 

In our travels and jobs we have seen children who have successfully added many languages, and children who struggle in new languages and even in their first language.  My advice to parents moving abroad: don't take your child's language acquisition lightly.  Think long-term.  I'm no expert here, but here are some considerations I see need to be processed:

-Age of children and how long you will be away from your home country.
-What language will their school operate in?  (depending on your host country, there may be international schools in English, local school in the local language, or options for continuing education in other languages)
-Will they someday return to your home country and need to go to school there? (if they attend an international school in English will they be able to return to a non-English speaking country and pick back up?  Where will they go to college and what language will they need?)
-Will they be able to communicate with their extended family?
-How will you support their much needed continued acquisition of their first language?

Yes, children learn languages much more easily than adults, but that doesn't mean sitting in a classroom not understanding what is happening around you, or going back to your home country unable to read the signs, is not hard.  There are pros and cons, benefits and consequences to weigh. 

I like the short and sweet nature of this article: Local Language or Not? about acquiring what the author labels "temporary" languages.

Family photos

Getting professional family photos can be tricky as an expat.  For us, finding someone to do what we want locally was hard, and finding the time when we are home for breaks is nearly impossible.  We've been pretty set on getting some done and we wanted something that reflected where we are living for a couple of reasons.  It's important for us to have representations of where we have lived to take with us as we move to help Tegan have a sense of where she's lived and have consistent objects around (pictures are small and flat and take up little room in a box!).  And, we want to document our growing family for ourselves and to share with extended family and friends.

Lucky us, we discovered our good friend - Peter Hennigar - is a pretty amazing photographer!  It was a great morning out, full of laughing and onlookers.  He has a young family also so was great with a very cranky Tegan, knew that we wanted a bit of Nepal charm in our photos and shot a whole bunch of different styles.  The highlight had to be either the man joining our photo second photo down or changing from jeans into the skirt in the middle of the square with a rather surprised audience.  We are ecstatic with how they turned out.  I can't wait to get them printed and up on the walls!

If you are living in or visiting Nepal and want some more info check out his site at Hennigar Photography.

National Adoption Month {Guest post!}

Before November is through, I wanted to recognize National Adoption Month.  When I was young, my mom worked for an international adoption agency for the China department.  Since then, hearing stories of families working so hard to adopt babies who so desperately needed a home, I have had great respect for families who come together through adoption.  A number of our good friends have adopted children internationally as expats and I asked one of them to write about their experience.  Krista and her husband Frank have 2 beautiful girls; they have been blogging about all the great activities and ways they are honoring National Adoption Month over here.  Enjoy!

My husband and I are international educators living in Taiwan. When asked to write this guest post from a former coworker and current amazing friend, I was beyond honored. November is a special month in the McGowan household; it’s a time when we honor adoption, our two beautiful girls, and the amazing natural families who made our dream come true. Adoption for us wasn’t out of necessity, it was a choice we made, my husband and I--together. This choice came with it’s ups and downs, as all choices do.

Our story is perhaps a bit different from many adoption stories in that we wanted a private adoption in a foreign country. Navigating through the legal hurdles and obstacles was mind numbing. We finally discovered all we had to do was get a baby, then deal with the legal stuff later. Easy right? Well, that’s where things became difficult. I’ve written about some of the bumps and bruises we experienced along with way on our blog Taichung Teachers.

Adopting in a foreign country is not for the faint of heart. We were 100% dependent on local friends, translators and hope that everything was going smoothly. We spent thousands of dollars translating documents into Chinese and then Chinese documents into English. As court dates drew nearer, we were met with list after list of new documents needed by the Taiwanese courts. These documents were not always accessible. For instance in Taiwan, all nationals are registered to a household and our adoptive girls needed to be registered as well. The problem was, we aren’t Taiwanese nationals and therefore could not have anyone registered to us. The solution by the Taiwanese officials, “just have a friend register the girls under them.” The courts also required we show them our US household registration-which of course we don’t have because there are no household registration cards in the US. This idea was completely foreign to the courts and caused us quite a bit of stress as initially, they were unwilling to bend.

All of these things were problematic, but would have been accepted more positively had all our friends who have adopted gone through the same process. The problem is, every single case required different paperwork. It was as if the judge pulled out of a hat which paper she needed on any given day.

In honor of National Adoption Awareness Month, we thought we would finalize our adoptions at home in the good ole U-S-A. We found a lawyer to deal with the re-adoption end and then the search was on to find a lawyer to help us with the citizenship end of things. This is where we hit a wall. Being expats with no desire to head home any time soon, we fall into a grey area. If we wait two years, no problem. If we want it done immediately, major problem. We have to start from scratch with a US home visit and go forward from there.

Adopting abroad has been difficult at times, but worth the struggle. Adopting has been the single best thing I have ever done in my life. However, I’ve found there are little to no resources available for our type of situation (one that I am planning on rectifying as soon as possible). Adopting abroad has expanded my world view beyond what I expected was possible. I now see immigration differently and have been frustrated with my government’s lack of acknowledgement of my children.

With that said, I have found that the greater adoption community is beyond supportive and our friends have stood by us throughout the whole process. At the end of all this struggle, we have been blessed with two darling little girls. Due to the way we did our adoptions, we walked out of the hospital with our girls being 1 day old and 2 days old. This probably wouldn’t have happened for us back home.

We have a rainbow family and one we are incredibly proud of and honored that we were chosen to raise these little monkeys. I don’t refer to myself as an adoptive mother, or my children as adopted children-we are a family built on love. Every night my husband and I read the girls a story, tuck them into beds and kiss them goodnight-just like every other family. Every morning we are greeted with peels of laughter and monster hugs. Whatever difficulties we have experienced become quickly melted away when our little girls look at us and give us big ole cheesy grins. At the end of the day, we are parents, they are our children and we are a family.

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!