Planning Long Term Travel with Twin Toddlers

You have probably noticed I'm blogging a lot less these days.  I've got so much on my mind that I get a bit swamped with 'where' to start.  And so I don't write.  Some of the things I want to blog about seem so trivial and I think "Who wants to read this crap?"  But people have been reading my crap for years, so I guess I'll keep churning out the thoughts in my head.

This blog is going to be dealing with more issues on planning for our year (or more) of travel abroad with our twins.  Of course, life goes on, so it won't be just that.  Plus, who really wants to read a year of posts of how we are 'planning' to do something?
Since we've made the decision of YES, we are going to DO this, we've come up with many (almost too many) options of how we are going to do this.

1. Save up and travel for one year
2. Save up enough to travel for one year, but plan to work remotely while traveling...and possibly extend the year to years...
3. Get hired abroad and do short trips while based abroad (Hong Kong, Singapore and possibly India are our best bets)
4. Get hired abroad, fulfill the contract and then take off traveling for a year (or more)

There are so many variables to each one of these it's mind-boggling.
How much we need to save depends on:

• what kind of travel we are doing, 
• which and how many countries we visit, and 
• what type of life we expect to live while on the road.

Ideally, we would like to travel for two years when the boys are age 3-5.  We're both big fans of slow travel--spending a few months in each location--as we like to dig into the local scene and really get to know that part of the world.  Neither of us have grand plans for a dash-here-and-there-round-the-world kind of trip.

Also, in the past decade, Chicken and I have both covered almost 25 countries and consider ourselves seasoned travelers who have a sense of the places that would be great with kids and those locations that would be difficult.  That's not to say we are experts, only that we are not newbies who feel like we need to get out there and start crossing things off a list.  We love to see new things, but we're also really excited to revisit some favorite places and see it all over again through our children's eyes.

Traveling with a 3 year old is going to be quite a bit easier than a 2 years old. (It is, right?!) Currently, for our month in Costa Rica, we are having to bring pack n plays, strollers, Ergos, and a stock of diapers/wipes.  We won't have to worry about ANY of that when we they are 3.  They will be old enough to walk further/longer, we will be less strict about naps, they can sleep anywhere and use a variety of interesting toilets.

Raising bilingual children is very important to us and we'd love to spend the first year in Spanish speaking countries.  Perhaps Mexico-Guatemala-Argentina?  Maybe we'll love Costa Rica so much we want to return there for a longer period of time?  It would be great to learn a valuable language while we are traveling and have our kids come back fluent.  They are doing so well with their Spanish right now and I don't want them to lose it, so this is a big concern.

In the second year, we see ourselves in South East Asia.  In the past, we saw ourselves based in Bangkok.  But now that we have toddlers and specifically toddlers who beg to be outdoors every possible moment, a big city like Bangkok with little green space does not seem very enticing.

However, Chiang Mai in the northwest has a wonderful climate and is surrounded by lush mountains and greenery.  Furthermore, I have a very good contact there from volunteer days and it's quite likely I could work.

In fact, I could probably do much more meaningful work in South East Asia than I could ever dream of doing here in the USA.

The second year could be Thailand-Malaysia-Indonesia.

There are so many options in this region and we want to go everywhere!

If we only have one year?  We don't know.  Honestly we go back and forth.  Our knee jerk response is SEA because the cost of living is so low, the weather is wonderful, the people are kind and they love children, the food is delicious and it's safe.

But we love the 'goal' of learning Spanish--which cannot be done in SEA.

If Chicken can find a way to parlay her skill set into working online--then we are set.  I think she can do this.  We're networking and planning and it's just going to take some time to figure out what it looks like, but I believe it's out there.

And....if I can find a way to make some money off my writing, then we are double set.

Next Up:  Budgeting for Our Travels

Weaning My Two Year Old

Hi There.  Yes, I have 2 year old twins and yes, one of them is still latching on twice a day--more if I'd let him.
I'm quite torn about weaning.  I have loved breastfeeding more than I ever thought possible and really don't want it to end.  I wish I was still breastfeeding both of them but it's only Grunter and I as Whoop Whoop abruptly left the boob with a laugh when he was 18 months old.
When I was pregnant, I vaguely remember being a bit ambivalent about breastfeeding.  I was kinda like, yeah that would be cool if it works.  But did I take a class?  Nope.  Read any of my breastfeeding books? Nope.  Open my breast pump or sterilize the parts or figure out how the damned thing worked until the twins came home from the hospital (by the way, don't be stupid like me and do this)?  Nope.
My attitude was a bit "Eh, it will either work or not and if it doesn't I'll be bummed but lots of people use formula and it's all OK."

I never could have predicted the intense reaction I would feel to the possibility that this might not work.
When it looked very much like a failure, I put everything I had into making it work.
Grunter got it faster than Whoop Whoop and if it weren't for him, I would have quit and gone to bottles.  Whoop Whoop put me through hell.  When I think back to those TEN weeks that we struggled with him latching on, I cringe.  I'd love to have happy memories of the newborn days, but I don't.  That was not my reality.  The untreated PPD, the colic, the low birth weight, the troubles with breastfeeding, the eating every 2 hours, the extreme sleep deprivation, the low milk supply, the slow weight gain.  It was all hellish.

So when the breastfeeding finally 'clicked' and it did, though probably not right at 10 weeks, more like around 4 months for me, I knew that I'd give it everything I had.
And I did.  Through countless clogged milk ducts and painful recurrences of mastitis and yeast infections and more sleepless nights, I gave it everything I had.

At some point, it became joyful.  I LOVED tandem breastfeeding my twins.  I cried when I had to stop using my double breastfeeding pillow, but little did I know it was only going to get better and better and better.

Breastfeeding a toddler has seriously been one of the best things I've ever done in my life.  It is so rewarding and FUN.  Yes, it's fun!
Right after the twins started toddling about we moved our mattress to the floor and it created a giant play mat of sorts for them.  Our snuggle place, our breastfeeding place, our reading books place.  The decision to move our mattress to the living room floor was the best one we've made in a long time.  They love it.  We love it.  Kids over for playdates love it.  And the way they can crawl/toddle and now walk and climb into the bed with us is priceless.  The way one of them will stop breastfeeding to walk to the book shelf and come back to hand me a book to read while they are having "mommy milk".

Whoop Whoop, even though he spontaneously self-weaned, still asks for 'mommy milk'.  For him, this time is snuggle time with mommy in bed.  He's on one side with his 'moo milk' and Grunter is on the other side nursing.  When Grunter commands "Other Side!" W2 knows to scramble over my body and they switch sides.  I hold them both in my arms and my life feels so full and complete.  I love it.  I kiss them both and W2 tries to kiss Grunter and Grunter pushes him away and W2 want to kiss him so badly but Grunter is having none of it.  It's so sweet and I don't have these intimate moments with them any other time of the day.
I'm loathe to give them up.

Around Thanksgiving I cut out the 'after nap' nursing session (which went horribly with much wailing and tears and tantruming of Grunter--it lasted about 2 weeks and was awful).
Now we are down to 2 sessions a day--after waking and before sleep at night.
My supply is dropping and has been for over a month.  I knew it when Grunter started crying and pulling off saying "milk OUT".  Poor thing was so frustrated and pissed out that there wasn't much milk.
There have been nights that he doesn't ask to nurse.  Sometimes 2 or 3 nights in a row and I wonder....what now?  But then he asks again and we're off to cuddle.

I've been explaining to him that the mommy milk is slowly going away and I don't have much anymore that's why I can't give it to him in the afternoons (oh yes, he still asks for it sometimes!).  He seems to accept and understand this and says "Moo Milk".  Yes, you get moo milk instead.  "Moon, mommy milk."  Yes, when the moon is up and it's dark, you will get mommy milk.

We'll be going away in a month and it's going to be even harder for me to nurse him in our house in Costa Rica.  I won't be able to 'watch' Whoop Whoop while he nurses.  Our bed is not on the floor.  It's going to be hot and sticky and sandy.  Nursing a hot, sticky, sandy toddler doesn't sound nearly as dreamy as a clean toddler in a clean bed!
Plus, well....I never in a million years would have dreamed I'd be breastfeeding a 2 year old!  It's crazy considering how it started.
So, I think I'm going to start weaning.  Maybe.  I could change my mind tomorrow.  Or maybe laying in a hammock with a sticky toddler will be dreamy and I'm just obsessed with being clean and sticky-free.

Happy New Year 2012

My heart sings with love. These two boys are the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm the luckiest girl in the world and so happy to be their mommy.
It's been a very good year.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bad NT Scan for One Twin--HELP

Hey Readers,


One of my best friends lives in the Netherlands is about 13-14 weeks pregnant with twins.  She's had a really hard time getting pregnant, has had repeated blighted ovums/miscarriages...you name it.  This was her 3rd IVF cycle and she finally got pregnant with twins.  
Everything was going really well until she went for the NT scan.
Here are her results:


I had one child with a Nuchal translucency (NT) of 1.6 and this one was considered low risk 1:1800.  The other one has an NT of 4.0 which is actually very high risk...sadly.  But, what can I do.  I got an estimate of 1:5 for Down's and this is with the NT and the blood combined. 


Can anyone share their experience with a bad NT reading/bloodwork?  Did you do a CVS and/or an Amnio?  Did you have the child?  Outcome?


She's going ahead with the testing, I believe soon.  It will tell her more and she can elect to do a reduction at that point if she wishes.


I am so very sad for her and her husband.  I just want to hear some voices who have been there, if you could leave a comment.
Or just wish her well.  Thanks.

My Brain is About to Burst

In a good way.
But, oh.  The overload of information.  My mommy brain doesn't function as well as it used to and I'm not used to this amount work.
I dropped off a bit, I know.  Damn that NaBloPoMo.  I failed.  Anyway.


Let's pick up where I left off, shall we?  And I'm try not to bore you or take to long to get to the point.
We left off with pre-school.  Do we?  Don't we?  How?  Where?
The comments touched off a series of conversations I had by myself.  Silently, just me and my head.
I had to come up with a few 'plans' before I could let Chicken know what we were going to be doing next.


Chiang Mai, Thailand is what I came up with if we were going to live abroad for a year.  So for the next week or so I made my wife crazy telling her how we were going to do it and how much it would cost and when we were leaving.
And she balked.  Rightly so, I suppose.  She IS the one who makes the money in this family and she IS the one who is highly employable whereas I am merely enjoyable at a cocktail party (Eh, I used to be.  Now I'm too tired.).  But I'm a pretty good mom and I'm a damn good travel planner and I can be very, very persuasive.
Little by little she started coming around.  More facts, more ideas, more coming around.


And then I found my people.  My traveling family peeps.  
Now, I've been following a few travel blogs for years.  Not many, 2 or 3.  I knew if I let myself I'd find one blog led to another and another and I'd be swallowed up by all of the fabulous family travel blogs out there.  And I couldn't let that happen because I had babies to take care of and pregnant lesbian bloggers to cheer on and mommy blogs to follow and life.
But now...well, the twins are at the age where I can see this happening.  I can see us DOING this.  Taking off for a year (or more?) and living this dream.
I've been swallowed up.
I'm not even sure how many family travel blogs I'm reading right now.  And of course, I want to start from the very beginning.  I want to know everything.  Now.
And then I found some travel blogger and family travel groups on FB.  And well, well....the connections.  The ideas.  The inspiration.  The amazing-ness of so many people!
I seriously don't know the last time I felt this tingly about something other than my kids.  They make me tingle everyday.  But this...


Something seriously cool happened a few days ago.  I was reading FB posts regarding family travel in Chiang Mai.  I looked at the avatar of a poster and thought to myself "Oh, it looks like they are traveling with a toddler".  So naturally I am intrigued and click to their FB page...where it says "NY, NY" and I'm very intrigued because there's something about the photo of that little girl in the photo stream at the top of the page...and there's a link to a website and BAM.
I find myself staring at my neighbor's kids.  What a small world.  We aren't 'friends' per se, but I would see her kids almost daily and we'd met and chatted from time to time, but I didn't even remember her name until I saw her kids.
She, her husband, a 3 year old and a 1 year old have taken off for the next year to travel around the world.  Her husband has found a way to work part time while they travel and so far they are having a blast.
They are doing it.  And what a small world for me to have found them.  Read their blog here.


This couple and their story did something to Chicken.  Suddenly she was all on board, ready and willing to find a way to make this happen.  I know I'm making her crazy talking about all of this now, but we have to plan accordingly and these kinds of things don't just happen overnight.


Right now, we're really looking forward to our month in Costa Rica and 'trying' out living abroad.  Even though some of it will be in vacation mode, much of our life will be harder.  She'll still be working, I'll still be a SAHM.  
Only I'll have a 2 story house with no safety gates to keep track of munchkins.  I'll have a house that has no walls downstairs and leads straight to the yard (thank god the yard has a gate).  I'll go from knowing where my kids are at any given moment in my 750 sq ft one bedroom apartment to wondering if they are in the far corners of the gardens trying to eat poisonous frogs or if they've managed to get out the gate and are now being swept away in the ocean.  
I'll still have to figure out how to get two toddlers up, dressed, fed and transported a mile up the road (without my swanky SUV double stroller) where I'll wait with them to catch a bus to take them to their preschool in 'town' by 8:30am.  And then repeat it all over again when I pick them up at 12:30pm.  We'll still cook meals together only now we'll have to figure out how to keep the ants out of our open air kitchen. We'll still run errands and go grocery shopping only we'll have to do it by strapping the kids on the back of the bike and pedaling 6 km on a dirt road to the market.  
Yes, living within walking distance to the beach is going to be a mighty fine thing but convincing your 2 year olds to take multiple (or at least ONE) cold shower a day is not going to be so easy.  Yeah, I'm a little bit worried about snakes and spiders and bugs and scorpions and dengue fever from killer mosquitos.  But, hey, there's rat poop in the NYC playgrounds.  At least we'll have a sloth in our yard, howler monkeys in the forest around us and toucans flying through the trees.


After this trip, we will put a plan in gear for what comes next.  Our ultimate goal is to start traveling at the beginning of 2012 during the boy's preschool years and (possibly) coming home for (free) Kindergarten.


Some of our concerns/questions:

• Do we take a year off and travel around the with 3 year old twins?
• Do we establish a 'home base' (Chiang Mai is our number one choice) and travel shorter distances from there?
• Travel to a few different locations, set up 'home base' every 3-4 months and one/both of us works along the way?
• What kind of work could Chicken and her MBA do in a virtual work world?
• If we set up 'home bases', do we utilize local preschools or homeschool/worldschool?
• How much money do we need (depends on if we work along the way....)?
• What countries--as a same-sex family--should we cross off our list?

Yes, my brain is bursting and I've only just begun.  For now, I'm busy de-cluttering the apartment in anticipation of what we'll have to store while we are away.  The less, the better.  In the past week I've been able to clear out an entire closet of hanging clothes, 10 pairs of shoes, 4 coats and donate it all to the Bowery Mission.  I've shredded the contents of one file drawer, thrown away a heap of crap, and sold $200 worth of baby stuff.  I daily debate whether or not to sell my antique bedroom dresser, bed and cabinentry.


There's so much more going on but this is the big, big stuff.  Who were those people moving to Florida?  WTH?!  This is the life I was dreaming about.

PreSchool Alternative in NYC?

I am firmly in denial that I have to start thinking of preschool in solid terms.  I mean, I *think* about it.  I practically obsess about it in my head; running the numbers and thinking of the gains and what does it all really mean for what price.  Oh, I think about it a lot.
But I haven't actually done anything about it.  Like, put my name on a list anywhere.  


Forget about preschool for a moment--what I should have done is put my kid's names down on a list for PreK.  I should have done that when they were born.  You know, for PreK. 
PreK is when the free stuff starts in NYC.  But only some elementary schools have PreK and not all are good.  So, you can imagine the competition (actually you probably can't imagine unless you are living here with kids.  It's freeking insane and besides rent, it's pretty much all people talk about).


However, we are lesbians with twins.  No one would ever, ever, ever admit it--but I know for a fact that we will get bumped up those lists because of the 'diversity' factor.  True story.
That doesn't mean I should keep procrastinating, but it does make me feel a teensy bit better knowing that finally I've got the edge on the straight white couple.


OK, back to preschool.  The cost is insane.  I don't know how much preschool costs average around the country and beyond (do tell!) but here in NYC, the average cost is roughly $1500-$2000 per MONTH.
Ahem, times two for twins.  Although some are generous with a 5% sibling discount.  Five percent, yee haw.
The highest priced preschool in NYC is $30K.  For a 3 year old to finger paint? Seriously??


Let's assume we get a spot for two kids in a (cough) reasonably priced preschool in our neighborhood.  Just your average 1/2 day program.  
I still can't go back to work full time because of the drop off and pick up times.  Or, if I did go back to work full time, I would still have to pay for a nanny.
It kills me either way because for 'what' I do workwise (for those of you who have been reading awhile I am most decidedly NOT the career-driven one of this couple) does not make me much money.
Going back into the workforce gives me a lot of anxiety.  I don't even know what I'm going to do next. But that bit of panic is all for another post.


We could keep them out of preschool until they turn 4 and can go to (free) PreK.  There are plenty of classes and activities to keep them busy and happy.  This city is full of possibilities and learning opportunities--many of them for free.  It would be a lot of work and I would really have to buckle down with my planning and scheduling, but a homeschool preschool could be a possibility.


The other option--one which we will know more about in April--is living abroad for a year and renting out our (furnished) apartment.  Chicken has the strong possibility of being able to work remotely and so we would keep her income, plus the rent from our apartment and we would live in a moderately priced country (Costa Rica?  Argentina? Thailand? Malaysia?) with a great alternative preschool.
This is one of the reasons we choose where we are going in Costa Rica this winter--the awesome Waldorf preschool ($160/month) and the low cost of living.  The ability for the boys (and us) to learn another language is also HIGH on my list.  
I would prefer that language be Spanish as it's the most beneficial (or maybe Chinese) but I also wouldn't pass up a year in Thailand if that presented itself.


So that's where we are.  Homeschooling or leaving the country.
How did this happen?

Happy

Just in the last week or so, Grunter's speech has been making leaps and bounds.  W2 seems to be taking it all in and will say something (or try) if you ask/prompt him, but he is not as verbal as Grunter (even though he started off being more so).
Being able to pet the cat is their goal of the day.  I swear we lift them out of the crib and they chime "cat!" We have a rather shy and skittish cat who is not too keen on letting them near.  Lately the boys (especially Grunter) have learned to be quiet, calm, gentle and slow and then....maybe.....he can get near enough the cat for a quick stroke of fur.
This past weekend, while I was sick in bed most of the day, the cat was laying on me when Grunter came to nurse.  He approached very slowly and the cat let him not only pet, but HUG him.  While his head was resting on the cat's belly, I asked him if he heard the noise the cat was making?  He smiled and said 'Si' (they don't say 'yes') and I said, he's purring.  He makes that sound because he's happy.  
Clear as a bell Grunter said "Happy!" and his whole face lit up with a smile.
Now he goes about his day and randomly will tell us he's happy.  Today I saw him 'clapping' the hands of one of his dolls and saying "happy!"


Tonight as I was leaving their bedroom Grunter yelled out "Mommy".  He has only started calling me Mommy and Chicken Mama in the past few weeks.  Something clicked and he knows which one of us gets which name.  Since that lightbulb went off--I hear Mommy! all day long.  This can be good and bad!
But it's usual for him to want me to come back just one more time....
He stood up in his crib and reached out to hug and kiss me in the darkness.  Then I asked W2 if he wanted to give me another hug and kiss goodnight.  He replied by moving his face over to the crib slats and making giggly kissy noises.  I responded by kneeling down and kissing them both through the crib slats which they think is hysterical (and it's beyond cute).
Then they both blew my kisses and sang out "ciao! night night!"


These are the moments that I live for.  During the first year, which was so very dark and difficult--these were the days I was waiting for.  Well worth the wait.