Back to School Shopping

Today our play date was cancelled, so we decided to get some back to school shopping done. It's still quite tricky for me because after 30+ years of shopping for clothes in the US I struggle with sizing & what to call things here in The UK.

When we first moved, I thought "Hey, I speak the language. No problem!"  Not quite. Nothing is the same, even if I could go to my favourite store. (See, even auto correct is in on it. It didn't like the way I spelled favorite there). Although I hear there is now an H & M in our old mall. 

Anyway, shopping for pants here always garners me weird looks and someone is bound to direct me to another part of the shop. Pants as I know it are called trousers here and what the British refer to as pants are what I call underwear. Confused?  Me too!  So are the sales associates. You see, I'm not a shopper. I want to get in and get out. I don't like browsing. But I can't because not only do I have to find what I'm looking for, I have to convert sizes to something that works in my brain. For whatever reason, I can't work out centimetres (auto correct did it there too). I know how to convert it to meters and everything, but I just can't convince my brain to think about clothes in centimetres. And I haven't even gotten to shoes...

So I created this helpful list to help with back to school shopping but also school itself.   Until you get the hang of it I hope this Back to School List  helps.

I also found this website that has a shoe size chart with US vs UK shoe sizes (plus as an added bonus European and Japanese shoe sizes).Shoe Conversion Table

Imagination

Imagination (n) the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses

I have always wanted my children to have vivid imaginations. As a former teacher, I had classes of students who were unable to entertain themselves during recess times and it bothered me.  When we would have indoor recess I would not let them watch tv; you would have thought the world was coming to an end!  So when I became a parent, I didn't want my children to watch a lot of tv and their favorite toys were multi-play as opposed to single purpose.  (With an impending 3rd pregnancy...well...they watch a bit more tv now)

That being said, my kids do have imagination.  They can entertain themselves with paper towel rolls and pipe cleaners for hours.  I feel like I have helped foster their imagination by giving them the opportunity to play without toys.  I never imagined how their imaginations could grow even larger.

Today as I was getting dinner ready, I over heard them outside playing Greek Gods/Heroes.  Now, I'm pretty sure that this was because we just returned from a week long trip to Greece.  We read Greek Myths and heard a great many stories while we were touring Athens.  But what struck me tonight was not just how their imaginations have grown in tremendous ways, but also how they will play with their peers when we return home.  Their peers here would join in, because they have similar experiences with either vast travel or vast reading knowledge.  But when I started to think about some of their peers back home and how they played together, the 45 minutes that my children were playing would have been rife with discord. The knowledge about the Greek Gods/Heroes would be limited at best, which I'm sure would cause problems with the "flow" of play.  My kids are self-confident anyway (even before we moved).  When something isn't going correctly, they want it corrected and aren't afraid to tell someone how it can be corrected. So my questions are these...

How do I help my children make this transition back home?  How will I help them not seem pretentious?  How will I help them learn to code switch (to borrow a Ruby Payne term)?  I am no where closer to figuring these answers out, but with a contract due for renewal in 1 year, I might want to seriously start considering it...

Welcome!

What in the world is this blog all about and what are Third Culture Adventures?????

Three years ago, I would not have been able to answer that question myself.  But after living abroad for 2 years, I get it now.  

My husband and I are originally from the Southern U.S., North Carolina to be exact.  Well, I can't quite claim that I am a born and bred Southern girl, but I am definitely Southern at heart.  Up until August 2012, we were raising our 2 kids in a small suburb of Raleigh. That was until my husband got a promotion, which just happened to move us to England. Southern England, which by the way is NOTHING like the Southern U.S.  When he first told me, I was excited, then worried and then scared (all within about 30 minutes). I thought, "Hey we speak the language.  No worries!" Ha! The joke was on me.  Yes, we speak English.  But it ain't the same!  I sometimes think it might have been easier to move somewhere that was completely foreign.  

Our Third Culture Adventures are what has happened since we moved from our 1st Culture (Raleigh, NC) to our 2nd Culture (England) and all of the transitions along the way-that would be our 3rd Culture by the way.  

One would think that going back to visit friends and family wouldn't be so different now. After all, there were lots of people who we didn't see but 1-2 times a year anyway.  But it is so different now, we all have a hard time fitting in.  Sometimes it feels like we are in a foreign country even though we've been there many times. That's where that 3rd culture comes into play and that is what this blog is all about, with some other random bits thrown in on the side.

Kara