It is - what it is !

It is what it is 

This little saying right here folks is one of my VERY favourites. 

So many things are wrapped up in those five little words, things like:

‘Live in the moment’

‘Be grateful for what you have’ 

‘The grass isn’t always greener’

‘In this moment I am ok!’

‘I have faith that I WILL be ok’

See by saying this – and REALLY meaning it – you’re offering acceptance. Acceptance of the situation, of yourself, of what you have right now. IT IS WHAT IT IS. We can’t change what has happened we can only make the best of what we have got – right?!?

Countless times a week…actually, a day...I wonder if I am breaking my kids. Am I - their mother - doing everything humanly possible to give them the best start in life that they deserve? After all the raising of humans is a HUGE responsibility. So big in fact I often wonder why the universe entrusted lil ol ME with said tiny humans. If I think of the big picture the responsibility is overwhelming BUT to live in the moment, to enjoy today with them is, well, it’s pure bliss. 

The teenager years – gah – are something I am sure instil fear in even the most capable parent. When the fear of the teenage years kicks in I think of an amazing mum who I love dearly. This mum has raised two and a half incredible, amazing teenagers so far (with 1/2 to go) and when I see them together I think maybe, just maybe, I can do this ! This mum is a person in my life that I have always looked up to and admired and I am so incredibly lucky to be able to call her my beautiful cousin.

It’s only now I can begin to understand what it is that make her the incredible Mum, friend and person that she is. The magical reason is that she doesn’t sweat the small stuff.  She might see it differently but that is how I see her. I look at her and I see the relationship she has with her kids and the fact they all LIKE each other for starters is enormous. I see that when she is with them the rest of the world melts away and it’s just them, in a bubble. Her, hubby and their three most favourite people in the whole entire world. That doesn’t just happen ! It take hard work, patience and most of all acceptance.

I want THAT! I want to raise kids who ‘like’ me – who want to spend time with ME regardless of how boring or daggy or ‘mumsy’ I may become. The other day my cousin told me a story that literally made my heart swell. She was on canteen duty and her pre-teen son came in with his mates to ‘score’ some free stuff. As he was leaving he called back to her “Thanks mum – love ya”. His mates sniggered at him so he turned to them and said “Dudes she’s awesome why wouldn’t I love her?”! 

THAT right there folks is one of those parenting moments when you KNOW you have made it! It’s the parenting equivalent of Olympic gold! I am almost certain that after that you go home, stand on a podium and hum the national anthem. Well at least pop a bottle of champagne right ?

I am well aware that all kids are not the same and not everyone is proficient at throwing around public displays of affection. This little guy has always been an if-I-love-you-I’m-gonna-shout-it-from-the-rooftops kinda kid. However this has given me a goal – I want to raise kids who like me. If my kids feel the need to express love for me in a public place then even better but I will happily settle for kids that as adults choose to spend time with me. But of course it’s a work in progress and for now, I am going to ‘live in the moment’ and enjoy them for what they are. 

There have been times when raising my kids overseas has thrown a few curve balls. But it’s nothing we haven’t been able to handle to date. They have had an amazing life, they have travelled, they have experienced many, many cultures and have been lucky enough to call five different cities home and they are only six and nine. They have friends from all over the globe, they have friends that have lived all over the globe. They ride on the back of motorbikes through rice paddies, barter in markets, hail taxis, ride buffalos, pass through airport security checks like a boss, board a plane as if it were  a bus and, like many of the kids that share their world, they have a good social conscious. Well that is what I am trying to install in them. 

They however have not been in a sports team with the same kids year after year, nor have they been able to pop around to Nanny and Pa’s on a whim for a cuddle and a cuppa. They have not had a BFF year after year and have not been able to celebrate their birthdays with family. We don’t have that wall in our home with those little pen marks that show just how much they have grown as a living representation of just how quickly time flies and how small they once were. 

See these are the things that I MISS, and sometimes I miss them so much my heart physically aches. These are the things I know they have missed out on, without them even knowing they have missed out on them. And here it is folks, those five little words: ‘It is what it is’ right there – BOOM! Their life is THEIR life and (thank god) kids don’t have ’sliding doors’. They don’t know the flip-side, the alternate life they may have had if we had raised them in one place. They only know ’their life’,  their immediate happiness and ‘right now’ and for kids that is totally ok.

That is one of the things that I love about kids. I am not sure when as adults we lose the ability to live in the moment. When do we start to wonder what we should have, could have, would have done differently? When do we start to worry about the future and what it may hold, if the choices we make today will affect the life we have tomorrow? When do we lose that ability to just enjoy what we have right now, today? 

More often than not the key to happiness – to REAL blissful happiness – is to live in the moment. To be ‘present’ and have moments when you let things slide, when you forget about the bills piling up and the milk spilt all over the kitchen floor, the worries on our minds, the fact that bedtime was 20 minutes ago, and the washing that is literally climbing up the wall. Instead we sit down with our kids, our tiny humans, and look at them, and I mean REALLY look at them and say: 

‘It is what it is’.

In THIS moment life is good. 

My two travelling 'like a a boss'

Some of the amazing things these monkeys get to do on a regular basis.

My mum and brothers when they were small - time goes too quick its always beneficial to stop and enjoy the little things. Me, my brother and my beautiful cousin (on the right)  

When the whole world is celebrating something you don't have - well that kinda sucks ! A tribute to those kids without Mothers and Mothers without their babies on Mothers Day 2016

This is something I have wanted to write about for a VERY long time, I guess for the most part the hardest bit is trying to articulate what is in my heart - to put it down on ‘paper’.

When the World is celebrating something you don't have - well, that kinda sucks. Nestled neatly between my Mum’s anniversary (of her death) and her birthday is Mother's Day, so it's like a trifecta of sorts, of memories and emotions all stuffed into one small space in time. But I guess that's the thing with anniversaries and birthdays and special dates - they roll around again and again every single year. So every single year those same emotions arise from deep in the place that we keep them stored away for the rest of the year. 

Like oil on water they float to the top and sit there like an ugly slick bringing contamination to our neat little lives. Lives we have managed to package up somehow and get back on track to what is a semi-normal state. Albeit with a chunk of ourselves missing, a big burning black hole in our hearts that will never ever be filled. We do this because that is what the world wants right ? It wants us in nice neat little packages that fit into a cookie cutter existence so everyone feels ‘comfortable’ being around you. How long do we get to grieve ? How many hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades is it humanly acceptable for us to ‘get over it’, ‘get on with it’, get ‘back to normal’. I admit it is very difficult to imagine the impact of loss unless you yourself have experienced it. 

For me, it's always been a part of my life, for as long as I can remember I feel I have always been aware of our mortality. When I was 5 one of my school friends was killed in a tragic accident and at age 11 my Dad passed away. So it was no feat for me to understand that we all have a beginning and we inevitably all have an end. I know some kids live a life of freedom from this, the most trauma they have encountered is the loss of a pet, however some have to bear the burden of much MUCH more. I know how hard it was to watch my 3 year deal with seeing his Grandma loose her battle with cancer and get his head around that she is gone forever - its just not a concept that kids that little are equipped to deal with. 

I believe it does change you - to know that we have a end when you are young, it's almost like finding out that Santa isn’t real and that fairy tales are not true…one day we will all lose someone we love. I have friends that have lost children, as newborns, as young adults and I myself lost my brother when he was just 17. You don’t ‘get over’ that - you simply DON’T. No matter how much the ‘real world’ keeps spinning and the sun rises and birds chirp and people go about their business - you simple DO NOT EVER get over a loss like that. You find a way to move through it - to keep pushing forward like a hamster on the wheel. You just keep putting one foot in front of the other until one day your loss is not the VERY first thing you think of when you open your eyes. Sure it's there and it never leaves you and you think about it at some point in the day - in EVERY day. But there comes that moment when the cracks open up and the light begins to filter in and you can again start to feel the warmth of the sun on your soul. This is when you allow yourself to start feeling joy and happiness instead of pain and regret and guilt. 

But there is no time limit, there is no book of instructions and there is no ‘normal’ way to do this because nothing about this is normal. Instead you need support and understanding and love and compassion and most importantly TIME. Lots and lots of time… Where we grew up was close to a large cemetery and I always remember my Mum commenting on the lines of traffic that queued up each Mother's Day to lay flowers for the woman that they love. “Why do they wait till they are dead?” she would ask in genuine confusion, sometimes it is just like that. We never know what we have until it is gone.

I still miss my Mum even though its been six years and I am sure certain I will always miss her. Its especially tough when its your last parent and sometimes if I scratch just below the emotions on the surface it physically takes my breath away. This is something I want to write further about in the future - being an ‘adult orphan’ but for now I miss having her in my life, I miss my kids having her in their lives, I miss calling her, I miss having her on my side and most of all I miss having a Mum !

So - this Mothers day if you know a Mother without a child or a friend without a Mum, then please take an extra minute to think of them, to consider them, to show love and compassion to them for what they have lost. For what they will never ever ‘get over’ for what consumes them and fills their soul if they let it. Call them, message them, acknowledge them and acknowledge their loss. Speak of their child by name and continue to do so for the year ahead. 

And if you are lucky enough to have your mum within arms reach - hug her, spoil her, make her your ‘Queen for the day’ - because you know what ? Mums absolutely deserve it ! They are a once in a lifetime kinda humans.

In loving memory of my Mum and with the deepest respect for my beautiful friends who arms are empty this Mother's Day xx

My mum in her 'hey day' with my 2 brothers before I was born

My Mum and Me <3

The 2 beautiful humans that made me a Mumma

My Mum with my youngest - less than 4 weeks after this photo was taken she was gone.

So its ANZAC day...

So its ANZAC day in Australia - a day that has always resonated with me, on many levels. Its the day we became a Nation, a day of national pride and a day that the true Aussie spirit was born.

20 years ago today - I stood as a young backpacker on the shores of Galipoli in the very place that those young boys we call ANZAC’s landed. If they survived in an instant they were transformed from boys into men. The paradox of us arriving a guests, travellers on an adventure of a lifetime, young, free with the world at our feet. These men left the safe shores of our home land with the same mindset - an adventure, the world at their feet…until that moment as dawn broke and their boats crossed the darkness of the Dardanelles to land on rocky shores and be literally destroyed by the enemy. I couldn’t help make reverence to what they had seen as their boats arrived, expecting to land under the cover of darkness, unknown to their enemy but instead finding the exact opposite. The opportunity and the honour to attend the Dawn service at ANZAC Cove in both 1996 and 1997 is an experience that I will always hold dear.

My eldest is 9 and he is quickly developing his social conscious which is something I am really tyring to nurture in him. Particularly as he has spent a huge portion of his little life living and travelling in the developing world. I really want my boys to be aware of how blessed they are. Last year he experienced his first Dawn service at Changi War cemetery and it was a very sobering occasion and one we were both honoured to attend, especially as Aussie ex-pats away from home. This is a tradition that I really wanted to continue with him, for him to be able to pay his respect for the blessed life that he leads and to be aware of the freedoms that are ours because others have paid the supreme sacrifice. However this year - living in Hoi An the only services were small events held at pubs and I decided that maybe his was not the environment that I had in mind for him to remember. So we did not attend and tonight we will sit down and talk, and pay our respects to those boys that gave up their youth so that we can say we are from the worlds luckiest country. 

So as I sat last night reflecting on my decision to not take him to service in a pub in Danang I realised that we had just had a an experience the day before, in Cambodia that allowed him the opportunity to reflect on the turmoil of war. While in Siem Reap we visited the Cambodian Landmine museum. Below is an exert from their webpage about how this centre was born:

The Cambodian Landmine Museum was established in 1997 by ex-child soldier Aki Ra.  After years of fighting he returned to the villages in which he planted thousands of mines and began removing them, by hand, and defusing them with homemade tools. 

In 2008 he established a formal demining NGO, Cambodian Self Help Demining (CSHD).  CSHD is a separate NGO and apart from the Museum. They clear landmines throughout the country.

The idea for a Relief Facility came around when Aki Ra saw many children wounded by landmines and those in extreme poverty. He brought them to his home, where he and his wife raised them as their own, alongside their own children. Originally, all of the children at the facility were landmine victims. Today the facility cares for children who suffer from a variety of difficulties.

The Relief Facility houses over 2 dozen children from small villages in Cambodia. The children are enrolled in public government school to continue their education. The Facility also has its own school building to enrich the children's education with a computer lab, a library, English language classes, a playground, and a staff of 14. The Relief Facility accepts volunteers to help teach English, work in the Museum and assist in the office.  

Again this is a very sobering place and one where the utmost respect is required once you have walked through the doors. The statics here are mind blowing, like the fact that it costs USD $5 to lay a landmine and USD $500 to clear one. The fact that Cambodia and many other Countries in the world are littered with land mines and un-exploded weapons of varying degrees. The fact that in a time of war when devices created to maim and kill were scatted across these countries there was no tally of what was dropped, there are no maps of the mines that were laid. The consequence of which is that now, in peace time there is absolutely no way of knowing exactly what is out there or how big the task at hand is to clear these area and make them safe.

Or how about the  statistic that still today in Cambodia approx 120 people each year will either be killed or made an amputee by a landmine, one third of these victims are children and almost all of these are boys. IMAGINE sending your child out to play or to gather wood or food and there is a VERY real risk that they could step on a landmine - it takes my breath away ! 

The K5 mine belt in Cambodia is considered one of the most hazardous place on the planet … I repeat - ON.THE.PLANET !!! and this is MAN MADE ….. humans CREATED this and this is something that I can’t quite wrap my head around.

We as humans have been gifted this amazing planet that is abundant in water and food and resources for us ALL to live in peace and harmony. But here we are STILL fighting, killing, causing hate and harm. My goal is to raise kids that want to change the world for the better, who want to make the world a better place, who want to encourage their friends to make the world a better place and who live with respect for what we have. I want them to live alongside the knowledge of how dreadful man can be, but counteract this knowledge with notion that we can be better. That with love and grace we can create a road map for peace.

There are so many people doing so much good in Countries like Cambodia but without the spoils of war there efforts would not be warranted. Humans can be hideous but they can also be amazing … like Aki Ra and then 10's of thousand of other people world wide that get nominated for things like the CNN heroes (If you have heard of this I urge you to google it and watch some of the grabs - it will truly inspire you)

So today I pay my respects to the ANZAC’s, to the child soldiers of Cambodia and Sierra Leone and many other countries in the world. I pay respects to the armed service Men and Woman that are currently serving our Countries, to the Vietnam Veterans, to the families that have lost and lived without their loved ones and those that are displaced and living in war zones today.

LEST WE FORGET … and may we continue to strive for PEACE 

You can see more information about the Cambodian landmine museum and why Aki Ra made the top 10 CNN Heroes list for 2010:

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive10/aki.ra.html

My friends and I at the 1996 Dawn Service in Gallipoli

Changi War Cemetery, Singapoe - Dawn service 2015

Changi War Cemetery, Singapoe - Dawn service 2015

My kids and their 'cousin' outside of the Cambodian Landmine Museum - Siem Reap

Our transport from Siem Reap to the Landmine museum, it was approx 45 min journey bumping along dusty dirt roads to get there. We saw so much of real Cambodian life along the way.

Sometimes love just ain’t enough ...

I want to tell a story, a story that might be familiar to some or foreign to others. A story I don’t think I have ever told from start to finish, but here it is.

One day when I was 16 years old my mum, who was a foster career, got a phone call. That phone call was to tell her that there was, in a hospital somewhere across town, a tiny baby boy that needed a home and a family to love him. He was 10 weeks old, but he was also 10 weeks premmie, so he was pretty much a newborn. 

The next day we drove to the hospital, entered the maternity ward and were pointed to a clear plastic basket in the corner that held a tiny, beautiful baby boy. I will NEVER forget that very first time we saw him. We unwrapped him and turned him over on his back as he stretched out his arms. I gazed at his angelic beautiful face and it was instant love. A true case of love at first sight.

Being a premmie there were to be some expected deficits. But we happily took them on and took him home to give him as much love and care as possible. 

As time progressed it became evident that he had a condition called Hydrocephalous, which is basically fluid on the brain. This was believed to have been caused by a cerebral haemorrhage at birth. As a consequence he spent a LOT of time in his early months and years in hospital, including having a shunt put in to drain the fluid from his brain. My mum remained by his bedside at all times and we loved him as much as we could. 

He thrived and grew into an AMAZING little boy with bright blue eyes, olive skin and curly blonde hair. They had to shave the top of his head for the shunt when he was really young and when it grew back he had a beautiful mop of the curliest blonde hair just across the top of his head. 

When he was around 18 months old the subject of ‘long term’ was raised. He was ‘ours’ and the thought of not having him in our lives was not one we cared to entertain so mum investigated the route of adoption. At her age (early 50s) and with her marital status (widower) the odds were against this happening. But what was for this happening was his detailed medical background which mum had intimate knowledge of, and so much had occurred in his short life medically. There was also the obvious bond that was present between this little guy and my mum, my brothers and myself. The courts and the ‘powers that be’ ruled in our favour and the adoption was signed and sealed around the time that he turned two.

So time went on and he continued to be a truly beautiful child – kind, funny, gorgeous, quirky. I ADORED him, we all adored him! But as all beautiful children do, they grow into teenagers and although they are still beautiful, the teenage years for some can be fraught with turmoil. 

Things has been tough for him. His quirkiness, which we LOVED, caused him to be ‘un-popular’, even bullied. His genetic history was fractured with mental illness. His biological family (a sister slightly older than me), his birth mother, father, aunties and uncles wanted no contact (aside from one aunty who would exchange letters). 

I am sure that something clicks in kids around 14 years old and they start to really want to figure out ‘who am I?’ Now I know this is the not the same for all kids that are not with their birth families, and many are raised with such a wonderful sense of ‘self’. Their internal question of ‘who am I?’ is already answered from within. They know who they are, or better still they develop who they are from their surroundings and determine their place in this world. For my little brother this was not the case. His sense of self was rocked to the core, he had no anchor. His mum was older that those in his peer group, his siblings were much older than him. His birth family did not want to know him and his quirkiness had disengaged him and ostracised from his peers. On top of all of this our Mum had been given a terminal cancer diagnosis. 

It was all too much for this child, who was transforming into an adult, to handle. He had no true north and no direction to figure out the adult he wanted to grow into and the direction he needed to steer. I believe these are the reasons that he decided to transform himself SO FAR from the child he had been, that beautiful kind, angelic, blonde haired, blue eyed, olive skinned boy. 

We all had so much going on. Mum’s health had taken a bad turn, my sister in law had a bad accident and we all had work and bills and commitments and this poor child got left by the way side. Bobbing up and down all alone in a sea of uncertainty and turmoil! He knew we were all there for him. I truly believe he knew that but he needed a leader, someone to give him clear direction and we were all just treading water ourselves.

We tried, we ALL tried ! Sometimes I think I didn’t try hard enough but some part of me knows that there was never enough. He spent different periods of time living with all of us but maybe that just exasperated the problem, put the instability under a microscope and really made him wonder when Mum died where would he ‘fit’ ?

So my beautiful sweet loving little brother emerged from his cocoon the polar opposite to how he went in. He dyed his hair black, took to applying (well over applying) black eyeliner to many parts of his face and wore black – and ONLY black. His world had in fact turned black! But we continued to love him, the more he rebelled the more we insisted we loved him. The more he tried to extradite himself and make himself unlovable we pushed on – well that is how I remember so I hope that is how he felt.

But this child was lost and no matter how much we loved him, to the depths of our souls - it was not enough to steer him ‘home’. 

Nine years ago, on 28th December 2006, he had decided that the world was too tough of a place for him and he made the choice to end his life. 

I remember the last time I saw him, Christmas day 2006 and I can still feel him lay his hands on my 8 months pregnant belly to feel the sweet kicks of his nephew he would never meet. I still remember the last time I spoke to him, it was the afternoon of December 27th and as I told him I loved him, my mobile phone dropped out of service - I can still picture it EXACTLY in my head. Had I known it was the last time we would speak I would have called him back. But that is life right ? We never ever know when the last conversation, kiss, touch or connection will be.  I’m pretty sure he heard me, either way my heart tells me he knows I loved him.

I know many people look on suicide as a ‘selfish act’ one that cast only pain and sadness on those left behind. I believe that to be untrue and unfair. I don’t believe anyone wants to die – I believe that sometimes the thought of living is just too much to bear. I believe that the thought of going on and having a future seems impossible. I believe that these shattered souls think the world is better off without them. Wanting to die and not wanting to live, I believe are two VERY different things… I don’t believe ANYONE WANTS to die! 

It’s funny when I think about him as an adult, I never really could image it. I know when you have a child or raise a child you dream for their future and the adult they will become. But I like to see him as being ‘forever young’ and I think I always have.

I think all this kid needed to know was that HE was ENOUGH! Full stop. End of story. Despite his quirkiness, his difference and his choice of appearance, he needed to know he was enough. He needed to know that he was ‘ok’. He needed to know that he ‘fitted’. He needed these things not just from us but from his world on the whole. Society, his peer group, his birth family and the commercial madness that drives what we believe is 'normal'. He needed to know he fitted and despite us loving him with all our hearts… But sometimes love just ain’t enough. 

In Loving Memory of Kevin Jonathan McMahon 15 June 1989 – 28 Dec 2007

Christmas is a VERY difficult time for many people. People are MISSING those that they love exponentially this time of year. People are feeling on the outside more than EVER at this time of year. People are feeling unloved, incomplete and not enough … for many, many reasons. I found it really overwhelming to hear from the funeral home that Christmas time is a very common time for suicides. So much happiness and love and peace on earth is pumped into us every which way. For those that aren’t feeling apart of this, for those that already feel on the outer, this is a time of year where negative feelings can go into overdrive. Feelings of loneliness, sadness and depression, longing, missing, and feeling incomplete. If you know anyone that maybe be struggling, reach out and be kind, offer love and open your heart and your home – you never know you might just save a life! 

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas....well, not really but we are trying !!

So I have been staling for some reason on this next instalment. There is SO much to write about but Im struggling to really find that ONE thing that inspires me to tell you all about it, so lets just start with the ‘right here right now'

Today is the 1st of Decmber ! SERIOUSLY - the FIRST of FREAKIN December, I swear my brain is still somewhere back in March - where are all the Easter Eggs ??? Oh yeh Christmas is around the corner.

Its a funny thing knowing that Christmas is so very very near and just a few hop skips and jumps away in another country is retail madness on steroids with society being fed Christmas cheer everywhere you turn. Here in Hoi An its an entirely different matter all together - Vietnam I have just discovered thanks to Wikipedia is one of the least religious countries in the world with almost half of the population practising ‘folk religion’ and the rest a mash up of Confucianism, Taoism with strong traditions of Buddhism thrown into the mix. Even amongst the ex-pat community there are many many races and religions, a lot of which don’t follow our Western idea of Christmas commercialism.

Don’t get me wrong - I LOVE CHRISTMAS ! I LOVE everything about Christmas, the decorations the carols, the parties and events, the gifts, the celebration and the time of reflection with family and friends. I am a living breathing example of the person that the Christmas money sleigh markets too ! If I had the means, the money and the storage (much to my husbands horror)  I would no doubt have a house to challenge the Griswolds. But here’s my problem. Apart from some garlands of tinsel there is not a lot of Christmas going on around these parts - but thats commercial Christmas anyway, so I guess maybe this is a good chance to really show my kids what the ‘true’ spirit of Christmas is...right?

In a world that seems, has gone mad. We are killing each other and turning our backs on those in need. We are racking up enormous debit on credit cards to pay for things that we will have to work all year to pay off. Can we make real change ? Sometimes I really wonder.

At my eldest school they have dedicated December to ‘act of kindness’ month. As I said the ex-pat community here is a virtual melting pot of customs and cultures and not all follow the same traditions that we do. To cater to everyone with the effort to avoid December passing without being special, magical and well remarkable as it is in our culture, the kids have been encourage to offer random acts of kindness. They are encourage to spread this joy across their friends, teacher and school staff as well as the larger community on a whole. What a GREAT concept - RIGHT ?!? What if we ALL followed a pattern like this ? Hey guy with the religion that’s different to us - you know I don’t necessarily believe what you do but why don’t I take the opportunity to tag onto the end of your festivities by being kind ! Such a beautiful way of acknowledging others beliefs and the true sentiment behind it all. Lets face it , the majority of the world that celebrates Christmas does so with Santa and presents and elves and reindeer with little or no thought or reflection of the true meaning behind Christmas - the religious meaning, does that make us all hyprocites ? No - not really !  So act of kindness month it is !  

I have, however just come out of the Christmas closet and admitted to being a Christmas freak, right here in a public place, and lets face seriously who doesn’t love a bit of Christmas cheer ?  The lack of festive opportunities here have resulted in a desperate times called for desperate measures scenario ! We can’t toddle on down to the local Westfields and line up to have our annual Santa photo, cause, well, there is no such thing as a Westfields here. I am pretty hard pressed finding the basic groceries I need in the mini marts that are on offer scattered around town! So, being a photographer and not wanting a ‘gap’ in the chronological order of Santa photos I plan on presenting to my kids as a story board of their childhood when they are older (but, being boys they will probably think Im a total freak) I decided to hold my own Santa photos in the rice paddies ! Why not - right ?!?

So I picked the location I, selected a date, I produced a flyer, I received bookings, I picked a local charity to donate all the proceeds to BUT I had no Santa !  So the other morning I headed to the local coffee shop (and if you are a follower of this blog you already know the the benefits of trailing spouses drinking coffee) and was introduced to a man, who kinda had that sparkle in his eye. We had a bit of chat, then it was "ok nice to meet you see you around". I sat down and opened my computer to work and next on my to-do list was ‘Find a Santa’ sitting there scratching my head, tapping my foot thinking. Ok I’m new in town, don’t know many people (don’t even have an emergency contact yet) where on EARTH do I get a Santa from in Vietnam. Several heads scratches and foot taps later it HIT me like a big red sack full of presents in the face ! That guy I just met, he would be PERFECT, older guy (sorry Peter you are totally young at heart) afor mentioned cheeky Santa sparkle in his eye, white hair, bit skinny but we can fix that we some cushions - I think I found my man !  So I had my friend message him to say hey guy I just met you - how do you feel about playing Santa for a photo shoot ? When the return text came back saying YES I would love to, I was a very happy photographer.

So Saturday afternoon we set up in the paddies. It was less than ideal conditions, with beating glaring sun in one direction and a wind that messed with my lantern set up and blew conical hats into the muddy surrounds. But we did it, we held our very own Vietnamese Santa photo shoot. The looks from the locals as Santa, myself and the boys set up a bench with lanterns in the middle of the Rice paddy was pretty priceless ! In addition to the challenging conditions, we also had to share the access path where we set up with the locals, and by locals I also mean cows ! We had to the move our set up on many occasion to allow the passing traffic of motorbikes, bicycles and said cows to get by but we made the best of what we had and in the end it was all a bit of fun and exactly what I had hoped for. A little Christmas cheer, and chance for some Westerners to not miss the opportunity to have Santa photos for their kids, something a little social and raising some money for a GREAT charity at the same time !

The charity that I chose is the Children’s Education Fund and they do some amazing work offering an education to young girls in pretty desperate circumstances. Please PLEASE have a look at their page, like and follow it and if you really want to follow the spirit of Christmas forgo a few presents or even give up the cost of a bottle of bubbles or a case of beer each amongst a group of friends and put that money towards this great charity - its doesn’t take a lot and the gift you can give of an education for a young girl in very challenging situations, last not just a lifetime but can make real changes in peoples lives for generations.

www.facebook.com/childrenseducationfoundation
www.childrenseducationfoundation.org.au

**Props for the shoot were VERY kindly lent to me by: www.hoianevents.com

Peter did an AMAZING job at playing Santa - yet again ANOTHER perfect example 

of the benefits of hanging out in coffee shops 

My 2 kiddos 2015 Santa photo

x

How to have a ‘wife’ in every port (and have hubby be ok with it)… and other expat essentials.

They say ‘it takes a village to raise a family’ and it’s a sentiment that I believe holds a lot of truth. So what happens when you find yourself living OS and your ‘village’ is somewhere else entirely, in a different time zone a literal world away? Well, you build one of course. 

So from this blog I have already established that us ‘trailing spouses’ can be described as many things: polygamist and builder of villages just for starters.

Family ties are really important to me and having my kids feel like they are part of ‘something bigger’ is also high on my agenda. I am also a kinda quality over quantity person when it comes to friends. Looking back now that I am about to leave my 3rd ex-pat posting with the little people, I can see a pattern developing. It goes a little something like this: 

1. Dating – You’re new in town you know NO ONE. Then there’s that moment you meet someone for the first time and realise you have something, anything in common with them. It might be that they are new as well, your kids are the same age, you’re from the same home town, or maybe they are just a bloody nice person and quite frankly you’d like to expedite this relationship to a higher level. It happens quickly in this world, you make friends, you bond over where to buy Australian broccoli, how to cross the road or when on earth you can find lamb for dinner without having to re-mortgage the house. So you ‘ask’ them on a date. Hey – person I just met – what are the chances you would like to meet me for a coffee after school drop off so I no longer feel like a loser sitting in the coffee shop on my own not knowing a single solitary soul? (all the while in your head saying please please please say yessss!). So if you’re successful and they do say yes, you meet the next day because you’re new, you know no one and you’re kinda desperate for a bit of company that doesn’t involve talking about Minecraft or fart jokes. 
2. The follow up – Does this person like me back, could this person potentially be the first member of my new village ? The pressure is on and the stakes are high. No one wants to crash and burn when it comes to making friends in a city where you feel like a total Nigel no friends. You have a second coffee date, maybe even a third and then the relationship escalates to a whole new level! 
3. The emergency contact – I am sure everyone who has ever re-located overseas has had that feeling of total utter isolation when you enrol your kids in a new school and THAT question comes up on the form. 'Please provide at least one emergency contact' (yeh, I know it’s a first world problem – so that quantified I will proceed). Are you SERIOUS? AT LEAST ONE emergency contact? Have you just forgotten that I have left EVERYONE that I know behind in another country (or sometimes even countries – plural) to move here and although I am currently on a recruitment drive to fill ‘my village’ at this exact point in time, as in right here right now, I HAVE NO FRIENDS. I repeat NO FRIENDS! Let alone someone that my kid knows well enough to step in, in a said ‘emergency’. So, with nothing to lose and an emergency contact to gain, you text the friend you had coffee with two days ago and say ‘hey, how do you feel about me putting you down as my emergency contact on my kids school form?’. You then pray to God that this person you are ‘courting’ as your potential new ‘partner in crime’ is not saying to themselves in a very loud voice ‘PSYYYCCCOOO’!!! So when this in fact happened to me – imagine my relief and utter jubilation when the text message was returned to me saying ‘Sure – no problem, I have already listed you as my kids emergency contact’ GAME, SET, MATCH! That right there ladies and gentlemen is like going to third base! I am in – she likes me, things are getting serious, this relationship has a real future. It’s almost enough to make you do a happy dance! 
4. The coffee turns to alcohol – So emergency contact aside, considering you have now been to the ex-pat equivalent of ‘third base’ with this person, you feel like you have some leverage to exercise preference over the nature of your ‘dates’. Coffee turns into wine, which turns into brunches, and BBQs and great afternoons all hanging out with the kids as one big happy extended family and before you know it – your village is taking shape.
5. The marriage – So some time has passed and now you have to think twice about the exact time difference between your current location and your home town, however you know exactly when it was that your ‘new wife’ text you back. You know when your next catch up is and maybe even what she is having for dinner. You talk every day, you physically see each other if not every day, then every second day and the question of ‘what are you doing today?’ turns into ‘what are WE doing today?’ Let’s face it, with the men folk travelling a lot for work there is a time when you realise that maybe, just maybe, there are days when you communicate with this new found friend, villager, spouse, more than your actual spouse. They know your kid had a fever the night before from an ear infection. They know you’re struggling a little at the moment because you’re missing home. They know your actual family by name and the names of all your BFFs at home. Then there is my favourite, your kids great them with a huge hug and smile when you all meet up … and vice versa. And eventually you get ‘Aunty’ as a prefix to your name. THAT is when you know you have just entered into the holy convent of ‘ex-pat wifehood’ (and there’s also the one where her actual husband refers to you as her ‘wifey’).

Honestly, I have been so, so blessed in all the places that I have lived with the people that I have met and I hold all of them very, very dear within my heart. If it was not for the close bonds that I have held with these women, I am sure my ability to survive and thrive would be greatly diminished. 

We should never underestimate the value of beautiful, true, genuine friendships. Especially when your kids are young. I believe as mums this is a time when we are often the most vulnerable. We are entering a whole new world when it comes to our lives and coupling this with a literal whole new world by living in a foreign country can really rock us off our axis. Combine this with the pressure we often put on ourselves as parents, the lack of family support because of distance and often being solely responsible for the social life of the entire family – it’s a lot of extra pressure. To have these women in our lives to vent, and laugh, and cry and share personal things even after only knowing them for a relative short time is something I have grabbed with both hands. 

You know how people rate dog years, i.e. seven dog years = one  human year? I think that’s kinda the same for ex-pat years. I have found myself confiding in, sharing with and loving friends after just one year and it honestly feels like I have known then for much, much longer. This is one of the things I am truly grateful for in this nomadic lifestyle, the pure, genuine, rock solid friendships I have had the opportunity to foster and grow over the past few years. I have friends that LOVE my kids like aunts and grandparents and I in turn love theirs like my nieces and nephews. I have no doubt in my mind that my kids feel like they are part of something bigger and that they are loved and cherished outside of our nuclear family. I feel that the other kids in their lives have been like cousins, so familiar that they can be themselves, and so loving that small indiscretions are overlooked. And they are always always asking to spend time together.

When I look at my Singapore wife and her amazing kids it makes my heart literally swell to think of all the things we have done together. From nights by the pool, chucking all the kids in the car and heading off on Friday night adventures to having the privilege to be there as we welcomed OUR fourth child into the world (haha just joking – the bubba really isn’t ours, it’s totally hers and hubby’s). I simply cannot image my life now if our paths had not crossed. From day 1 when we first rocked up to school with our babes in prams and we said the ultimate pick up line – ‘Do you want to go and grab a coffee?’ So now, thousands of coffees later and almost three years on it will soon be time to say ‘see you soon’ to this marriage. The marriage that has been rock solid and fun and funny and spontaneous and so, so very genuine. Not sure at all how you do that, but I guess I better try and figure it out. I should be an expert by now but this is one thing that is not in any way easy.

I have done it before and I know I can do it again and I know for certain that it’s not goodbye it’s always ‘see ya soon’. I know it’s true as in a few weeks I will be re-uniting with an old (she’s actually not old – she’s younger than me) wife and ‘cousins’ of my kids, or should I just say villagers from our time in Hanoi. To say that I can’t wait is a TOTAL understatement.

PS: Men folk, please don’t underestimate the power of bonding over a coffee. Yes I know you think it’s just us chicks sitting around doing nothing except spending all your money but that humble little coffee date can and does lead to bigger and better things. It gives your kids playdates, it gives you access to a social life outside of the office and it gives us ‘trailing spouses’, who have left all behind to start again and again AND sometimes again, a soft place to land, a place to connect, to de-brief, to engage and without that … well the cost of the therapy would far outweigh the cost of coffee!

My Kiddos and some of their 'village cousins'

Above image courtesy of i-world images

Image courtesy of WonderLight Photography https://www.facebook.com/WonderLightPhotography.photo