Why it's dangerous to shower with your daughter

The most dangerous thing you can do is to take a shower with your six year old daughter. It could potentially harm even the most confident, self-loving mothers out there.

I know because I recently took a shower with my daughter. Big mistake. There is nothing like someone pointing to every fat roll, patch of cellulite and saggy part of your body at seven in the morning.

I don't normally take showers with my daughter, but this particular morning, she came into the bathroom while I was showering and batted her sweet little eyes and said, "Mommy, I had a dream last night that I got to take a shower with you."

She looked so sweet and innocent standing there in her flannel Dora the Explorer pajamas. Besides, I thought to myself, what could it hurt, the worst thing that could happen would be she would go to school with clean hair and face.

So I agreed and before I knew it she has climbed in with me. And that was when it happened, I truly believe she was temporarily possessed by some kind of body-shaming-demon-from hell.

Her eyes glossed over and I swear in almost military fashion she began inspecting my body. I could see in her eyes she was analyzing every nook and fat-filled cranny.

First, she started with my belly, asking me if there was another baby in there, because it sure looked like it. Her glance went up my body slowly until she fixed on my breasts.

She pointed out that my breasts were really fat and asked why were they still so fat and full of milk. She was convinced it was for the baby I was carrying in my belly.

I told her there was no milk, but unconvinced, she advised me that once I had the "baby" I should lose weight.

And to put icing on the cake, she asked me if she too would be so fat when she was old like me. I tried to tell her I was still 25, but  she insisted that I was old.

She talked about my fat butt, as she called it and how big it was now. She asked if it hurt when I sat down. She asked why I didn't exercise more and try to lose weight. She talked about how she learned in school that people get fat by not eating healthy and that I must eat healthy.

I seriously could not get in a word, she just went on and on and on. And I couldn't wash my hair fast enough!

It was too early for this talk. I wanted to say so much to her, about how it's not nice to call people fat, that everyone is different. Most of all I wanted to tell her I loved my jiggly body. But instead I told her I was getting out of the shower, I was done. And it was true, I was done with her honesty, so I ran away.

But seeing myself through her eyes really helped me realize how it was time I stepped up and set a better example for her. Not to try to get skinny, but just to be healthy. For her, but most importantly for me.

So the next time I shower with my daughter she will say,"Wow mom you are looking good!"

And don't worry, after I had my morning tea, I gave her the smack down on body shaming. And most important I repeated myself like I always do, and told her:  I may not have the perfect body but it's mine and I love it, most of the time.

Why I smile when I hear a tantrum

Who knew watching a random child on the street having a tantrum could change my life?

Well maybe not change my life in a profound way like almost crashing in an airplane would, but it did make me start thinking about things differently.

It happened this morning, after I dropped the kids off at school. I was walking back to my car when I heard the loudest, most horrible blood curdling squeal you could ever hear. I turned around and behind me I saw a toddler lying on the side walk flapping around like a fish out of water. 

It immediately brought me back to when my kids were the ones cleaning the sidewalk with their backs. I remembered those days and I remembered when I wanted to run away and pretend like the child wasn't mine. 

I will never forget the time my son had a tantrum in the supermarket and an old lady just looked at me straight in the face and laughed as she walked by us. At the time, I thought it was rude, thinking how could she laugh at me during such a traumatic experience. But today, I realized why, and it was such a self-confidence-building-kinda- feeling.

She laughed because she knew what I was going through. She knew that in the grand scheme of life and raising a child, a tantrum was one of the easiest things you would  have to deal with, but it was an important rite of passage in parenthood. She laughed because she could see my future and she knew this too shall pass. Her laugh wasn't meant in a malicious way. 

And she was right about it all. It passed and I survived. And looking back on it, I can laugh now too. I can laugh about the time my son threw himself on the floor, kicking customers at the butchers because I wouldn't let him have another piece of worst. I can laugh about the time my daughter screamed bloody murder and began slamming her head against the wall at Ikea because I was trying to put her back into the buggy.

I can smile now when I see a random child hurling themselves down on the ground because it reminds me that I am a survivor. I am a good parent, maybe not the best, but my kids don't need the best, they just need me.

I will carry this with me through my parenting journey and remember it each time I am faced with a new challenge. I will remember that "this too shall pass" and to just be patient. And I will remember that all the important lessons in life my kids learned by having tantrums. It's all a process of phase after phase, and as my kids grow, I will grow with them. Just like I did each time they had a tantrum. I went from the cringing, embarrassed mother to a mother who knew exactly how to handle the situation.

From now on, I will smile every time I see a child having a tantrum and most importantly, I will pat myself on the back.

What it feels like when you think you are crashing

This was the cursed plane after we landed in Ireland

We all are going to die someday. Death is one of the certain things in life but the uncertain thing is the when and the where. And thank goodness we don't know these things or this information would dictate our our lives. There is a freedom in not knowing when you will die. And that was a freedom I took for granted until I thought I was going to die in a plane crash.

My two kids and myself set out last Friday morning to fly to on Delta Flight 73 to Atlanta, Georgia and then onto to Myrtle Beach, SC for sour annual trip to see my family. However when we got to the airport, our flight had been delayed by three hours due to a problem with one of the engines.

So we sat waiting at the gate and watched the mechanics work diligently on the plane and we then watched them test out the faulty engine. It was cleared by the safety standards and all 400 or so of us boarded this gigantic plane on our way to Atlanta.

I am usually quite nervous about flying, but not this time. I had flown a hundred times by this point and to be honest I was actually looking forward to the relaxation on the flight. I could read while the kids watched a film or two, or three, as they normally did.

And that was exactly what happened, we got into the air, the kids began watching a movie and I settled in with a book I had been dying to read all summer. Soon after, our lunch was brought to us and the entire plane was abuzz with passengers eating and the usual commotion.

Then, all of a sudden, a young lady sitting across the aisle from me started to scream. She screamed "There is something wrong with the plane!" over and over again. Not two minutes later the captain announced that there was a fire indication in the cargo area and we would be emergency landing in 5 minutes.

It was like watching myself in a movie. First of all, how did this lady know something was wrong? There was no way, not even the stewardesses knew anything was wrong.

The plane suddenly became very quiet only for the occasional sob.

My heart lurched out of my chest and I seriously could not believe this was happening to me. I immediately looked at my kids sitting on either side. They were watching a movie, oblivious thank God, to what was going on.

I had a sudden urge to reach out and hug someone. I wanted someone to hold onto especially since I could not see what was going on outside of the window, we were in the middle aisle. I could feel us dropping a little faster than normal and my ears were popping.

I looked around at the other passengers, strangers were holding onto one another while others really kept a calm face, like it was just any other landing.

But we didn't know anything, we only knew that as a precaution we were landing in Shannon, Ireland. To be honest, I would have preferred not knowing anything at all. My stomach was in knots and I couldn't breathe. I listened to the lady in front of me soothe her seat mate. I suddenly reached out and grabbed her too through the in between of the seats. I just needed her comfort, I was alone. I never felt so alone in my life. Sure I had my two kids beside me, but I wasn't about to share my fear with them. If their short lives were to end I wanted them to be happy watching a funny movie, not in the terror I was experiencing.

In those minutes, I thought about two things: I first thought about how stupid I have been in life worrying about really superficial, small things and my second thought was how I never had a chance to really follow my dream to be a writer. I know, maybe out sounds a bit selfish that I wasn't thinking about all the wonderful things in my life, like my two sweet kids sitting next to me. And looking back I think it was too painful to think about them at that point. They had their entire life to live and in just a few minutes it could have ended for them. The thought of it even now makes me cry.

I didn't think about anyone in particular, I just wanted human contact. I didn't make any promises to myself that if I am still alive I will live better or any of that cliche stuff. To be honest, I was just thinking about if it would hurt, so I frantically dumped our food trays into a plastic bag and put up our tray tables quickly. I thought maybe by some chance it could possibly increase our chances of survival. I didn't want to die in a tray full of gluten free bread and salad. Crazy thought but true.

I wanted to jump up and run out of the plane. I didn't want to sit there strapped in a seat belt waiting for my death. I wanted to do something and I couldn't. I had no control and I felt like I had lost my freedom of not knowing my fate.

I wasn't able to pray or confess my sins or anything like that. And up until this point, I wasn't afraid of dying and my soul moving onto another place. But I think the thought of dying from dropping out of the air in a metal capsule jammed packed with other people frightened me. And knowing that when we crash, it could potentially not be a quick death. It was like they say it was like  "watching a train wreck" except it was a plane and I was in it!

And then we landed. It was a rough landing, you could tell we were coming in fast and heavy and we stopped so abruptly that my daughter hit her head on the seat in front of her. The electricity went off in the plane and it immediately became warm. The fire trucks were waiting when we landed and I guess they did their thing because soon the pilot came on to say that everything was ok and no fire was found. Except, he wasn't being totally honest because I was later told there was a small fire.

We were towed to the gate, our tires were too hot and our brakes burned up. We were told to wait in the airport to see what was happening next and that was when we found out we would be spending the night in Ireland.

People were coming off the plane taking photos, FaceTiming loved ones and lots of crying.
People were upset. People were analysing and processing what had happened. I found myself talking to a stranger travelling by himself about our experience. He told me about his wife and daughter back home and how much he missed them. We said goodbye with a long hug and tears, no longer strangers.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night and ended up staying the weekend in Ireland since I refused to get back on the same plane.  The Delta desk attendant said to me "Well they won't fly1q the plane unless it is completely safe." I quickly replied, "That was what they said in Amsterdam and look what happened." So free weekend in Ireland for us.

And when I got on a new plane to finally travel to the US, a tear was shed for every bump and twist our  plane took on that six hour journey. I couldn't even eat the entire flight. My belly was in complete knots and all I could think about was that moment. That moment when my heart skipped a beat and I thought we were going down. That moment will live with me forever.

It has only been a few days and the shock has worn off, and now fear has set in. Somehow I have to get myself and two small kids back to Europe in four weeks. Maybe by then I can think about the lessons I learned in those 15minutes I thought we were crashing. Or maybe I can think about how statstically this could possibly not happen again. Or maybe we take a ship, either way, I have to somehow find strength so my kids will never know the terror I experienced.

What I learned from breaking my son's heart

The last thing a parent wants to do is to break their child's heart. Our instincts tells us constantly to protect them, to love them and to keep their heart safe.

However there comes a time in life when parents have to make difficult decisions and the consequence is a broken heart.

Recently, I had to make such a decision that broke my seven year old son's heart into a million pieces.

It all started during his end of year meeting with his teacher in group 2 (kindergarten). He struggled the entire year and the teacher wasn't sure he was ready to go to group three (first grade). We all decided to let him go with the agreement that we could always hold him back later.

And that was what happened, he struggled for another two years and I watched my confident little fire cracker wither into an insecure little boy who began to hate himself. I watched him walk into his class in group four every morning with his head low trying to go unnoticed.

So we were relieved when his teachers agreed we should keep him back another year in group four to mature and be with kids his own age. He was born in late December and had he been born a week later he would have been a year behind anyway. Another big reason to keep him back.

But we knew this would devastate him.  We also knew this was the right thing to do for his future and that the benefits certainly out-weighed the hopefully temporary pain.

It was the hardest thing I have done yet as a parent. My husband sat on one side of our son and I sat on the other surrounding him with our love and support. Then we told him.

It felt like we had chopped off his arm. He wasn't just crying, he was oozing with disappointment. We spent an hour trying to explain to him the "whys" and every now and then through his sobbing he would ask a question. Yet there was no way to explain to a seven year old about the future.

Our hearts ached with him, we felt his fear, disappointment and feeling of failure. My husband repeated over and over that my son had done nothing wrong for this to happen. We said he just needed time for his brain to grow. And he understood a little more each time we said it. My husband told him about his own experiences of being held back in school and soon the tears were replaced with giggles.

No matter how much he laughed, or how much he tried to dry up his own tears, my baby boy had a broken heart. It was obvious in the following days that he was at the lowest point of his life. He knew that in a few weeks the friends that he spent years with would soon move on and he would be left behind, all alone, with strangers.

As a parent, it is so hard to watch your child walk around like this. We were also in a sort of mourning with him even though we knew it would all turn out positive later. As his parent I felt like I failed him somehow. If only we had held him back two years ago, he wouldn't have even noticed. If only I had fought for my son harder, then his heart wouldn't be hurting so badly today. My head was full of ways I had failed my son and my heart was full of guilt from not protecting him from this pain.

Then my husband had this brilliant idea to let my son spend his savings to buy a Star Wars Lego ship to distract him. We told him it was a reward for trying his best the last year. And it worked,  he came home every day after school to build the star ship. After a week of building the ship, he was ready to talk about the decision we made and his future. Each day he was able to express his concerns and we were able to help calm his fears. We watched his sadness turn to anger, and his anger into acceptance.

And his teachers were amazing support for him. They planned a party and gift for him on the last day of school for his classmates to say goodbye. His classmates were also super supportive. Every morning since the news broke, they went to my son at his desk and put their arms around him or talked to him about how they would still remain friends.

The other parents were amazing too. I received so much helpful advice and even hugs. Yes Dutch people hug! I also went online to the community from Amsterdam Mamas Education Facebook group and received the best advice ever on how to navigate through this situation.

For the first time in my 13 years in The Netherlands, I didn't feel alone, and we as a family will not go through this journey alone. My son is loved and this love and support will get him through these dark days. I have also learned what it feels like to make a difficult decision and how to find the strength to follow through. And the world has taught me that good people still exist and especially in a place where I am an outsider.

The Time My Son Said I Was Sexy

I love to be called sexy, except when it comes from my seven year old son.

While sitting next to me, my son hugged me and said, "Mommy, I think you are sexy."

After I finished choking on my tea, I realized I needed to treat this statement like walking through a mine field. If I could carefully navigate myself around the trigger words, I could possibly come out unscathed.

"Um, Sweety do you know what the word 'sexy' means?" I asked.

"It means 'I love you' mommy. You're sexy."

Whew, what a relief my hunch was right, he had no clue.

"No, honey, that's not what it means, " and I prepared for the obvious next question.

But to my surprise something very different came out of his mouth. The conversation went from 0 to 100 in just one minute.

"Well I know what the 'F word' means," he said proudly.

Holy hockey sticks. I wasn't ready for this conversation. He was only seven. I was shitting golden bricks at this point and just wanted to run away.

I had no idea what to say. I really hadn't thought about ever having to have this conversation with him. What was the correct thing to say? I didn't want to scar him for life.

I remembered how my mother told me about sex: she simply handed me a book called "How Baby's Are Made" that started out with cartoon chickens having sex and ended with a cartoon mommy in bed and a cartoon daddy on top riding her like a Harley Davidson Night Rod Special.

After seeing this book, I vowed to stay a virgin at least until 50. I never, ever wanted a cartoon daddy on top of me.

So I asked him, "Where did you hear that word?" Here in The Netherlands, the word is used sparingly, but it would shock me if he knew what it actually meant.

"MOVIES," he said in a threatening way.

"Ok, Luca, what do you think it  means?"

"You know mommy."

"Yes I do, but I wonder if YOU know."

And we went on like his for a few rounds until he told me.

"It means 'neuken'."

Ok, "neuken" is the Dutch word for the F-word, so indeed he could very well know what it meant.

My head began to whirl and I was speechless. I opened my mouth to say something and nothing came out.

Then he started laughing and said "I saw things on TV, Mommy."

WTF, I thought to myself, what could he have seen on TV? Surely the Lego Ninjas weren't getting it on.

But I had to face it now or later. I had to face the fact that my kids were no longer babies and this was just part of their growing up. I had to get some Mommy Balls and just tackle the issue head on. I was prepared to be honest and talk about it.

I said, "Ok, Luca what did you see on TV?"

"Well you know, this..." and he began to kiss and lick all over his hand.

"Ok Luca, that is part of it, but there is more to it."

"No Mommy I know, I saw it. And you and Papa have sex too too.  I see you in the hallway sometimes."

He had me for a second, but then I came back to reality and began to laugh uncontrollably. First of all, the hallway? The hallway has seen about as much action as a convent on prayer night. So he had to be talking about when daddy gives mommy a kiss goodbye, which I didn't realize were so steamy.

I finally stopped giggling to notice that Luca was beaming.  He was so proud of himself for knowing something so adult. I grabbed him up and hugged him. Thank goodness his curiosity was satisfied for the moment and it seemed neither one of us was ready for him to grow up too much just quite yet.

He scooped up his Toothless stuffed toy and returned to his imaginary world full of dragons and ninjas.

And I went straight to the internet. So when Luca was ready to grow a bit more, I would be ready to guide him and shatter his dream that mommy and daddy don't have sex in the hallway before work.

If I had one wish...

If I had a fairy godmother and she gave me one wish you know what I would wish for?

I will give you a hint, it wouldn't be to be rich or successful. And believe it or not, it wouldn't be to look like a supermodel or to wear my skinny jeans again. My wish would be to have total confidence in myself when it comes to being a mother in a different culture.

If my fairy godmother asked me what I would wish for, I would say, to be one of those mothers like I see in the school yard, strong and confident who is not afraid of making mistakes and confident enough to know lessons are learned from mistakes.

I  wish to have the confidence to raise my kids in a foreign culture and fit in with the other mothers. Maybe even make a friend or two along the way. I wish that my son's teacher wouldn't attack me in a language that is not my mother tongue and I wish for the confidence not to leave the school crying and upset.

My wish would give me the ability to laugh at such people and not them them hurt me. Maybe people would be more kind if I were more confident and could speak Dutch better.

The power of my wish could possibly change the world of my two children. They would have a mother like the other mother's in class. A Mother who knows exactly what to do and when to do it. A Mother who could help them with their homework and could be the class parent or volunteer to read on Fridays. Not a helpless mother, one who can't read much faster than a seven year old just learning the skill.

My wish would change my world too. I would have coffee dates, dinners to attend and friends. There would be laughs and stories exchanged about the craziness of raising our kids. There would be shoulders to cry on and tissues to be shared. My support group would form and I would finally be a part of something here.  I would no longer feel out of place walking my kids into school. I would have the confidence to fit in, whether they liked it or not.

It's hard being an outsider here, I often feel like I have one foot on one side of the Dutch river and the other foot on the expat side of the river. I am constantly straddling, not fitting into either side. Maybe my wish would allow me to be on one side of the river.

Who knows if it would help and anyway, tomorrow will bring another wish. This is just my wish for today.

Too bad fairy godmothers don't exist but that doesn't mean my wishes can't come true. I still have the stars...