And... we're back!

After a small intermission, I'm back.

My month of June has been so full of events, that I actually can't believe that we are still in June. During these two weeks of absence, I was mainly busy with F's school (Speech day, sports day and some nice outings with the class); my mother's visit and the organization of F's birthday party.

Both boys are now on vacation, so I will obviously be short on time for the next couple of months. I'll try to come whenever possible, though.

Thanks for hanging in!!

Under the weather

I had a bad bad cold. Of course, after spending the whole week with my sick son, what else could I had been expecting for?

Remember my visit to The High Line back in October? Although it was quite chilly, here's the spring version. I still think is one of the best urbanization project.

Happy Women's Day

This is for all the wonderful women that bring so much joy into my life. Thank you for making my days better and share the good and bad moments with me.
Happy, happy, happy day for all of us!

To work or not to work

I would find it hard to believe that this question hasn't crossed the mind of every mother in our modern society. 

Some women need to work for a living, others because they praise their careers and are afraid of being left out of the market for too long, others because they may just not be satisfied by being only mothers and like the challenge of their jobs and others for all the reasons above. On the other hand, other women stay at home with the kids because they chose to or maybe because the household income simply wouldn't cover for the expenses related to childcare (being it a full-time nanny or a daycare). In any case, I believe that all reasons are valid and I'm in no position to judge any mother or her life-style here.

I worked until F was 1 year and a half. I liked it but there wasn't a single day that I wouldn't think about leaving my job to stay with him. In the descriptions I established above, I fitted in the "mother who praised her career and was afraid of being left out of the market". I thought I was too young to stop working (just turned 27 when F was born) and I had studied too hard just to hang all my diplomas and spend every afternoon in the park. But I suffered too much. When F turned one it hit me very hard, I felt I had missed everything that was important to me - spending time with him and watching him growing. Nonetheless, I still felt divided, because I wanted to build a career for myself...

Then came the decision to move back to Brazil and I got pregnant of my second child. I decided to take some time off. But I always had in mind, that after P would be 6 months old, I would go back to work. P turned one and I was still at home. In part because I couldn't find a job, but also because I wasn't really trying hard to find one. When we moved back to New York, I was lucky to be hired by the same bank I used to work for, with the same group, to do exactly the same thing. Unfortunately it didn't last.

The first weeks were hard because I had to be reacquainted with everything, especially the working space and rhythm. Imagine how hard it can be to stay in front of a Bloomberg screen for 10 hours, analyzing balance sheets and income statements after having spent two years changing diapers, singing children songs, playing with cubes, going to the park! That part was actually easy to overcome. But, the daily life away from the kids was just too hard for me. Not to mention that my husband works long hours, so I couldn't really rely on him. So, I decided to go back home.

I don't regret it. I enjoy and feel lucky of being able to spend this time with my kids. They actually do grow extremely fast and I would hate to miss their early childhood. I have a great admiration for the working mothers because I tried to be one and I just couldn't handle the challenge. However, there is this constant little voice telling me your kids will grow up and what will happen to you?

In addition to all my worries about working or not - and, I'm sorry, but I don't consider staying-at-home a work, especially when I see my sister who works full-time and takes care of her children with no help at home -, this morning F made a comment that left me so so sad. He told me that I should go back to work, so his nanny could give him breakfast like she used to do a few months ago while I was in the office. so, there is now this whole new question, banging in my head, that I had never asked myself before: will my grown up kids reprove my decision of having stayed with them? 

Big, huge, enormous *SIGH*. 

Oops!!

The concert is next weekend. Mommy brain in action.

If you are in NY, enjoy the snow!!

Dr. JMS, PhD

Let's give a big round of applause, for today, after more than six long years, my husband has finally earned his PhD in Economics.

Bou: given that now I know that you read my blog - I'm so damn proud of you!

Strolling overseas

In case you haven't noticed, I'm completed Internet addicted. I don't know how people could live without it and I definitely can't imagine my life without it. I really do almost everything on the Internet. If I could cut my children's fingernails through the web I certainly would. I need to be "connected" 24/7. The last thing I do before turning off my light is checking my blackberry and guess what is the first thing I do in the morning? Wrong. I first turn on my light :) This can't be good, right?

So here's the deal. I'm going away for four weeks. Yes, four full long weeks, with limited access to the cyber world and full access to my children (even more than I have right now). We'll be together aaaallll the time. No school, no playdates, no birthday parties, nothing. Which makes it even more difficult to have access to the outside world, but I'm really glad for that. However, since we will still be strolling around - yes, I'm taking a stroller with me(*) - I'll try to come here whenever possible to continue sharing our adventures. This time we will be strolling in Brazil and Uruguay, searching for a warmer, sunnier, buried-under-sand-and-sea-salt Christmas.

Cheers!

(*) Since I feel really inspired today, let's open a parenthesis on the stroller subject. I'm the happy owner of 3 strollers. You read it right. Not one, not two but three nice strollers. And here's what I've been noticing since I became a mother. Mothers are a whole different species. When they tell you that maternity will transform you, it is a fact. Believe me, not only your body changes, but you become a whole new person you didn't even know existed inside you.

Let me give you an example related to my bragging on having three strollers. Mothers are very competitive, but the competition takes place on a whole different level. They don't care how many houses, or cars or fancy shoes the other mothers have. They actually want to know how many words the other children are saying (can you believe it?! Some parents actually count and write down how many words their 2 years-old know!), with how many months they started to walk, they stopped using the pacifier, the bottle and so on. I've never counted how many words my children knew when they started talking. So whenever I had an appointment with the pediatrician, (here's my little dark secret - because I'm a mother, therefore I'm competitive as well), I would search on the Internet (my best friend) how many words they were suppose to know at that age. I did that a couple of times with F. and with P. I just told the pediatrician that he was talking a lot (in three languages, what about that?).

Since we are on the subject, here's another anecdote (mothers love to tell you about their special stories). The other day, I was talking with another mom from F.'s class and she promptly asked me how had F's report been. I blanked. I had actually completely forgotten to look at the report (just to remind you, he's only 4, so I still consider school like a fun place where children go to play, color, socialize and learn new things outside home). No need to tell you she looked at me and then at F. with a lot of pity in her eyes. She's probably thinking that with that kind of mother, F is doomed for the rest of his life. On the other hand, I was quite surprised about me. Given that I've always been the kind of nerdy student, I thought I would be like the other mom. I stressed so much with my own studies, that I think there's nothing left for my kids's. Maybe I'll change again when they'll be older...

Anyway, this has nothing to do with my original post. But those are my two cents on the subject before leaving on vacation. I wish you all a very happy Holiday!

I took the picture from here, and this guy has actually strolled a lot. Inspiring.

Raising multicultural children

This week I read this article written by Martha M. Batalha, a Brazilian journalist who lives in New York and is pregnant of her first child. I’m terribly sorry for my non-Portuguese speaking readers, because the text is in Portuguese. But let me give you a small summary here. The article was written as a letter addressed to the author's son in which she shares her fears and frustrations on having to raise him in another country, far from home. Her worst fear of all is that her son will be so integrated to the American culture that he will be completely different from her and that that could tear them apart in the future. In the letter she makes references to a lot of things that were meaningful to her during her childhood in Rio de Janeiro. And what makes her sad is to realize how different her son's childhood will be from hers. Nonetheless, she hopes to be able to show him and make him understand the importance of where she comes from and therefore where he comes from as well.

I was moved by the letter and I could identify myself with the author in a lot of aspects. Not exactly in the exact same things that were important during her childhood, because I wasn’t raised in Rio, but while I was reading it I was able to make the connection with other things, sounds, places, perfumes, people that were important to me while I was growing up and that my kids will probably never know. In fact, the letter touched me so much that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the last few days and I kept thinking on how I positioned myself on that particular subject.

The text brought back some dormant fears that I had during my first pregnancy. There were many. But most of them I can’t even recall now, which probably means they weren’t that important. Nonetheless, my worst fear of all was the language. I was afraid my children would speak to me in English (or in Portuguese when we moved to Brazil). I don’t have anything against those two languages. I’m fluent in both of them and I actually like them a lot. But they are simply not mine. I don’t think in Portuguese nor in English. Saying “I love you” in them would sound fake and getting angry would not sound as effective as in French - the language I speak with my children.

In my opinion, language is the biggest mark of a person and a culture. In my case I’m totally divided, given that I’m bilingual in French and Spanish. Depending on the situation I think in one or another. I speak only French with my parents, my husband and my kids, but with a lot of Spanish words here and there. I express my love to my kids with tender Spanish words and I also curse in Spanish – this is my latino side, it always sounds more poignant and dramatic. French is however more dominant in my daily life (Spanish is my sweetheart).

I’ve decided not to teach Spanish to my children. I thought that French, Portuguese and English were enough for their little brains for now. However, I sing to them in Spanish and I was amazed to see that they can actually understand and sing along. I know that they will not be Spanish speakers, but this is my way of transmitting a part of my culture to them. And you can bet they’ll know and carry some Uruguayan cultural traces as well. They'll know that the best meat comes from there (sorry Daddy) and they'll certainly know that the best dulce de leche is Lapataia. In fact, we are heading there for the Holidays and we’ll stay for almost a month. They will never be Uruguayan, but they’ll learn how to like the country, even if it is only through my eyes.

I sympathize with Martha when she says that her son will never experience the things she liked when she was young. However, for me this would always be a problem, given that I grew up in different countries. How could they live the same life as I did if we would stay in only country? I would love them to go each year to the market in Mexico City to choose their own piñatas as I used to do. Or go to Switzerland to celebrate L’éscalade by breaking a chocolate pot. Or spend their vacations visiting grandparents in France and Italy. Don’t even let me started on all the things they could be doing in Uruguay. And what about Brazil, where their father grew up? But I know that this is impossible.

However, I can teach them what my parents were able to teach me. Values. I can teach them to respect and appreciate each and every culture. I can teach them that they don’t necessarily need to agree with all aspects of a certain country and that they can actually take advantage of their diverse background to pick good things of all the cultures they are been exposed to and make one of their own. The one we are creating at home. We read in French, English and Portuguese. We watch DVDs in all three languages as well. A typical meal at home could include pasta (my Italian side), arroz e feijão (rice and beans, typical of Brazil) or crêpes (with Uruguayan dulce de leche of course). And this is normal. This is the way it has always been for me and this is what I want to pass on.

No culture is better than the other and no country is better than the other. I actually don't like when people start to become too nationalist. Probably because I can't understand what that means to love only one country, but also because it has always been at the root of any war. I believe that we can be happy and form a family anywhere in the World. Besides your kids could have completely different experiences than yours even if you stayed in one place all the time. Times have changed, the environment is different, and the parents of your children (you and your partner) are different than the ones you had. Education and values however should be the same. Our task is to guide our children. You can share the same culture as your fellow citizens, but you know that what will always prevail is what you were taught at home and the way you were raised. As parents of multicultural children, I believe that we have a quite challenging task ahead of us. Of course we want them to understand and respect where we and they come from. However, we have to be careful also not to alienate them from the local culture. We may not like everything, but we have to respect it.

When we moved back to Brazil, most of the people could not understand why I wanted so badly to come back to New York. Apartments are smaller, there is much less help than in Brazil and most importantly there is no family (I should also mention the winter). Agreed. It's not easy to be by yourself with two small kids and a husband away from home most of the time. But why wouldn't I want to come back to the only place in the world where for the first time in my life I didn't feel as a foreigner? For me New York is like a neutral place. People come from all over the world. Speaking more than one language at home is almost the norm. I love taking my kids to the playground and nobody looking at us because we speak French (the way people used to look at us when we were in Brazil, with that look in their faces meaning "strange"). I love that F's classroom looks like a small U.N. summit. I love that I'm not the only foreigner in my building or at my Pilates class. I love that even the Americans who live here are not necessarily from here. I love having friends from all over the world. And I love the idea that my children are exposed to all this diversity and are part of it. 

Home will be their safe-heaven as it has always been to me. As long as I can teach them my language, my values, what is important to me, to respect other people and their differences. As long as I can guide them throughout their childhood and why not even their adulthood. As long as I can provide them a safe place to evolve and become whatever they want to be. As long as they can understand that my roots are expanded all around the world and, therefore, theirs will be as well. Then I know they'll be fine. And I'll leave to their father the task of teaching them what it is to belong to one and only one place, because if it depends only on me they'll become citizens of the world. This is what I know and where I come from.

This is my own particular opinion on the subject, but I would love to hear your side of the story. How do you feel about raising children in a city/country that is not yours? What are the challenges you encounter? What about the positive side? And what about the people who are raising their children in their own country, how does it feel? Leave a comment and let’s start a constructive discussion. What do you think?

Relocating... never easy

At age 31, I have already moved six times to five different countries. Does this make me an expert in relocation? Certainly not. But I think I can be of some help in case you need some advice.

You may be wondering what this post has to do with the description of my blog. Well, the answer would be everything and nothing at the same time. This is just a post about random thoughts (I may publish one from time to time). However, since my two recent moves involved my children I could also tag this post as something related to kids.

This morning I received an e-mail from a very good friend of mine who has just moved from New York to London. She told me that although the city is fantastic, the adaptation has not been as easy as planned. She's not happy with her apartment, the neighborhood, her son's school and so on. I know exactly what she's been going through and I know how hard it can be to start all over again when you had such a nice and adjusted life - especially with a toddler by your side.

Two years ago, for many different reasons, my husband and I decided to leave New York and move back to Sao Paulo (where my husband is originally from and where my parents, after 20 years of nomad life, have finally decided to settle down). We had left Sao Paulo in 2005 as students and young married couple, full of plans for the future and excited about our new adventure. We would be living in New York! The capital of the world, where everything takes place in a blink of an eye, where there is this magical energy all around you and where you can really feel that you can achieve all  your dreams (at least this is how I felt when I was 25 and I still do... sometimes). Now we were going back to Brazil as young adults who had started their careers and their family. F was two and I was six months pregnant with P.

Needless to say that after New York is hard, nearly impossible, to live somewhere else. This is exactly what my friend is going through. But, eventually, we adjust. It may take some time. My mother always said that you need at least one year. After the first year, you start to enjoy your new life and after the second year you start to feel you belong to the new place. Another friend, who had also gone through the same experience of moving back to Sao Paulo after living for ten years in New York, where she got married and became mother of two, told me that it took her exactly a year to accept and get used to her new life.

One year may seem like a long time and it is. Nonetheless, I have to say that after that time I had my life back in tracks and I started to be more positive about the place. Last year, as I was still adjusting to my new life, my husband received a job offer in New York and we decided to come back. However, I know that this is just temporary and that we will eventually go back to Sao Paulo. I just hope that the second time around (actually third time, since I first moved to Brazil with my parents when I was thirteen and it wasn't easy as well), will be smoother for all of us.

After reading my friend’s e-mail, I couldn’t stop thinking about her and what I could say to comfort her. I've been thinking of what tips I could give out of my personal experience and this is the list I came up with (I wish someone had invented a "mind recorder", because I have been thinking about this list all day long and I hope that I will not forget some of the points that I thought were important):

1. Live one day at a time: try to give you some objectives for each day, even if it is just a trip to the local supermarket. This will keep you busy and you will have less time to think how miserable your new life is.
2. Explore the new city: buy a guide (city walks guides are great) and each week visit a new place. You could actually start a blog (like this one) - it would maybe give you some motivation to explore your new city. I have several guides of New York and I'm always referring to them to have ideas of new places to go, especially with the kids.
3. Meet someone of your same nationality. You'll eventually also meet some locals, but at the beginning having someone who understands what you are going through helps a lot. It gives you moral support and you can help each other to get adjusted to the new environment or if the other person is already well established she could be of great help giving you tips about the new city (where to find a cleaning lady, where to buy furniture, which are the good schools, etc).
4. Try not to think about your previous city. You probably have fond memories and you wish you were there right now, but it is past and you need to move on. My mother once told me that when we moved from Mexico to Switzerland, she would look at her watch and imagine what she would be doing at that specific time in Mexico. I did the same mistake and it just makes you miss even more your former life.
5. Try to focus on the positives and try to remember the things you used to hate about your previous place. I can tell you beforehand that this is a hard task to do. I've always hated cold weather, especially winters in New York. Well, while in Brazil, I found myself missing that. Now that I’m back in New York and that winter is around the corner, I can't possibly imagine how I was able to miss it.
6. Life must go on, especially if you have small kids. They depend completely on you and (okay, I used to hate the advice that I am about to give here, so you are completely entitled to ignore it) they will be fine as long as the mother is fine (see, it made me feel even more miserable, because not only I was unhappy with my new life but I was also affecting my kids' happiness). My kids were actually very happy (at least I like to believe they were), because I tried to give them my best when I was with them and at night I would cry over my husband's shoulder.
7. You are responsible for your own happiness wherever you are and you live only once. Try to make the most out of this new experience. This may sound as cliché, but you know I'm right about it.

Moving around is never easy. I suffered quite a bit as a child each time we had to say goodbye to our friends and leave a life that for me was already perfect. As I grew up it got harder and harder to make new friends and having to adjust to new places, new customs and sometimes new languages. It took a lot of effort and willingness. But, eventually, I always managed to adapt.

Nowadays I sometimes envy people who grew up in one place, with their family around and the same childhood friends all their lives. But, I am extremely grateful to my parents for the life experience they provided us. I speak fluently French, Spanish, Portuguese and English (and I'm very advanced in Italian). If I hadn't moved so much I would never had known all those languages as well as I do now. Even though I was very young, I have vivid memories of all the countries I lived in and I have friends almost everywhere. So, if you have children, as hard as the move can be, remember how good this experience will be for them in the future.

Life is too short to stay in one place. If I could, I would love to spend some years in Asia and also in Europe. I'm still young, so who knows... maybe one day.

First post...

So, I've decided to start a blog. I've been having this idea for quite some time now. But I kept postponing it, mainly because of lack of time, some laziness and also because every time I thought about it, a lot of questions would pop up in my head. Today I've decided to give it a try and I'll start my first post by answering some of those questions.

1- what am I going to write about?

Good question... I could write about my kids, but I don't think you'll find this subject very interesting. Don't get me wrong, my sons are absolute geniuses and I could talk for hours about the amazing things they do and say at only 4 and 2 year-old. See, I've lost you already... I'm not one of those designer moms that could share their crafts or a fantastic cook that could post pictures of all the delicious meals prepared (I actually do like making crafts with the kids, but I'm afraid of the kitchen, particularly of the result whenever I decide to mix some ingredients together). I'm a mechanical engineer, with a masters degree in industrial engineering, who used the work in finance and is now a full time mother of two. However, yesterday morning as I was heading to the Moma with my 2 year-old, it struck me. Maybe I could write about my outings with the kids. I'm always trying to find new ways to entertain them, new places to visit and I've been doing this for a little more than 4 years now. So here's the answer to my first question: this blog will be about things I do with the kids wherever we are. And, since winter is approaching in New York, I'll probably have to write about our indoor activities (which means that I'll have to be much more creative to entertain them - any ideas are more than welcomed).

2 -Why starting a blog?

Well, nowadays, everybody seems to have one (especially the stay-at-home moms like myself), why shouldn't I? Actually, the main reason is mostly because I feel that I need some sort of motivation to find new things to do. I've realized that lately I've became quite lazy and our wanderings have been reduced to going to the park (we change locations, but they are all pretty much in the neighborhood). So, maybe, by having this blog and a commitment to share new experiences, I'll be more daring and creative.

3- In which language should I write?

This question may seem silly and the answer should be pretty straight forward. However, in my case, it's not that trivial. I'm bilingual in French and Spanish. But after living for years in Brazil, I'm also fluent in Portuguese. Therefore, I would be pretty comfortable writing in any of those 3 languages (definitely more comfortable than in English). But, since I couldn't decide which one to choose, I picked a neutral one. Hence my blog will be in English (at least for now). so you'll have to bare with me with eventual mistakes and bad phrasing. I actually find it quite challenging and a good intellectual exercise.

4- The title?

That one was very hard. Then I realized that for the past 4 years I have literally been "strolling" around, meaning that most of the time, I'm pushing a stroller.

I think this is it. I know that I had many more questions before I started to write. But I think it is time to publish this post and get started with the blog!