People often ask what exactly Seth does. Nope he isn’t a CIA agent. He is currently the chief of the American Citizens Services Unit of the Embassy. He issues passports to babies born abroad, takes care of details related to death of Americans in Switzerland, meets with disgruntled Americans, takes care of issues related to American’s in prison in Switzerland, preschool talks on diplomacy and things like that. In addition to Americans in Switzerland he takes care of Americans in Iran. Previously he was issuing non-immigrant and immigrant visas.  Basically, he is doing lots of different things and working hard…so your tax dollars are not being wasted!

The Embassy is about 15 minutes from our home which has been a super duper perk of living in Bern.  Seth is able to hop on a tram that takes him about a block from the Embassy. You can’t ask for much more than that in terms of ease.  Here are a few pictures I took back in the summer when I was going to post some pictures of the Embassy…then life happened and here we are in a new year. oops.

Last week Seth went to school with Jackson and was the parent of the morning, sharing about his occupation.  Jackson was proud as a peacock as you can imagine. He sat in the front of the room with Seth and acted as the host for the presentation. I just can’t imagine where he gets some of these personality traits?! At Jackson’s preschool he showed them passports and special lights to detect fraud. The kids enjoyed getting to try them out. Seth said throughout the presentation Jackson added in his 2 cents, often completely irrelevant but at least he had a captive audience. Following Seth’s presentation Jackson and his class made passports with their teacher as their craft.

Not sure the kids were impressed with the suit and tie but you do what you gotta do to represent the good old United States of America abroad. Up next in July is a position in the newly named Foreign Assistance Office in DC.

When we were in Texas Owen hopped into the Barber’s chair (or rather a little ride in car) for his first hair cut. I know, I know he’s 2 so this should have happened long ago. But for me it still felt too soon. For those of you that don’t know Owen he has the softest, sweetest curls and I am a sucker for them. Jackson didn’t have hair until he was 2 1/2, well he had it but it was super short and practically white so it didn’t get much credit and it didn’t need to be cut until after he was 3. Owen was born with hair and had some very awkward hair for quite some time and once it came it so curly I just couldn’t fathom cutting it.

In the back of my mind I thought by the time I would have to cut Owen’s hair I would have another baby on the way which would mean I wouldn’t have to hold on to those sweet baby curls. Well, the day came, no baby on the way, cheaper hair cut than Switzerland and we went for it.  His favorite word these days for disagreement is ouch! So he fussed at the lady and said “ouch” the whole time. All in all it was painless.  I am not sure we got our moneys worth because I begged her to just trim it and leave some of the curl.

see what I mean?!  love these curls!

So for now I am thankful we still have some of these “firsts” left and I am embracing this big boy phase. They grow up WAY too fast. When it’s the right time (if ever) to have another little one we will embrace the firsts again. Until then I am watching these curls grow and I am going to try to postpone the next hair cut as long as Seth will let me.

As Owen would call them. For those of you that don’t speak Owen that would be “boots” and “balloons”! And for those of you that don’t speak Jackson those other words refer to the Statue of Liberty!  As we approach the busy season of holidays and travel I thought it was a good time to sit down and reflect on what our boys are into and up to these days! Owen is turning 2 this month and Jackson will be 4 1/2.

Owen ,the “baby” is turning the big 2!!!! And he is rockin’ our world. As with most other almost 2 year olds the joys are oh so joyous and the hiccups are oh so tumultuous!  When he loves he loves with all of his might and when he fights..well you get the idea.   Owen loves balls and has developed a pretty good throw! He also enjoys animals, dogs being his all time favorite! He will be having a puppy party this year with his cousins in Texas! Owen has just begun to show more interest in building with legos and the train set. Previously he was content to toss them around while Jackson played but he now wants to really make them work. He sees them as avenues to his brothers heart so he is trying so hard to be good at them too!  And goodness me we pray those magnets match up to make the trains stick together…..because he will let you know if they don’t. Owen has lots of new words and then a whole lot of paragraphs in his own language.  His latest words are “pretty”, “pumpkin”, “boops” /boots, “purple”, “pink”, “bue”/blue, “yellow”, “geen”/green,  “I too”/ me too, “mine”….oh wait, that is not new, it’s just CONSTANT!, “nein”, “ne”/”no” in German, “cool”, “doctor”, “snow”, and “ice”. He is trying to sing along with songs now and imitates counting with Jackson….although mostly in his own translation. He has turned into a better eater over the past few months…depending on his mood!  He gets served what we eat and he can decide if it is to his liking. One of the toughest parts of having a house guest is their observance of us carrying out discipline and routines. Owen loves the extra attention and takes advantage of someone watching, particularly at dinner time. Unfortunately for the rest of the diners mom and dad are sticking to our guns.  Daddy is Owen’s hero these days. Really he has been for a long time but over the past month he has transitioned into the role more of a little boy and needs mommy much less.

And the J man?! Well, he is continuing on his energetic little boy trend. He is eating us out of house and home and burning off those calories between meals. Jackson enjoys music, dressing up, fighting off intruders, building, talking, friends, and going to school. Today he was looking over my shoulder as I checked a blog and he asked who that person was, I told him it was a friend. He said “moooooom, you have so many friends and I only have a few”. He is a lover of people! Jackson and Seth just finished the book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”  and they are currently reading through “The Children’s Book of Virtues”. Like Owen, Jackson loves his daddy so much and cherishes these reading times.   Jackson’s favorite foods are spaghetti and meatballs and thai food. He  reminds me about how my mom’s thai food is the best but he still seems to enjoy mine too.  A couple of weeks ago when my cousin offered to make thai food Jackson was so thrilled and said, “how did Nathan know that is my second favorite food?” He’s precocious alright! Jackson keeps us on our toes with questions and “why?”s.  My cousin Jenny sent me a quote today that sums but Jackson’s current pastime…”The average four year old asks about four hundred and thirty-seven questions a day”.

This picture makes me think Jackson looks like my brother Ryan! Gotta love a 4 yr old in skinny jeans, construction gear and wrong-foot frog boots!

And these pictures capture their friendship!

When I was 15 I went on a church trip to Guatemala (with many of you that read this blog!). It was an amazing experience. We all worked on different teams doing camp for the kids, construction, etc. For the most part I spent my week helping in the clinic. It was so humbling to see what these people were dealing with. Mothers brought babies in that were clearly “failure to thrive” but these moms were doing their best to provide for their children. Moms were breastfeeding babies when they had hardly a bite to eat themselves. Kids were sick with diarrhea almost permanently from drinking amoeba-filled water and parents were unable to mask their deep needs with fancy clothes or even a smile to convince us that everything was okay. At the time I wasn’t a mom yet but I could see that their maternal instincts weren’t enough to make their socio-economic situation any better or their children any healthier.  They wore despair in their countenance.  The clinic had a newly acquired ultrasound machine. Now in the US we would have fussed that it wasn’t 3D and that it didn’t even offer a visual but for these mothers the concept of hearing their babies’ heartbeat nearly knocked them off the examining table. We saw them smile and regain hope that they were a part of growing new life!

One of the mornings we heard that there was a pregnant woman coming down from the mountains nearby and that she was ready to deliver her baby.  I was so excited and certainly naive at the thought of experiencing the miracle of birth. I remember riding in the bed of a dirty beat up pickup truck down the road to the clinic.  The road was so uneven that we banged against the metal sides as we rode. While we made our way in the truck a young mother made her way down the mountain. I imagine the rocky path while in labor was far worse than our jostling ride on the mud road.

I stood back as the nurse and my friend prepped the mom for her baby’s birth. I remember the look of terror on the mother’s face like it was yesterday. It wasn’t just the anticipation of sleepless nights and the loss of being alone as a couple with her husband, it was a matter of life and death for her. I am certain she had many friends and family members who experienced births that were a far cry from a sterile hospital. While I prepped my camera and anxiously fidgeted this mom worried that something terrible might happen in childbirth. I imagine she was completely overwhelmed at the thought of taking care of another family member when resources were scrapings from the dirt floor. The birth went smoothly and soon the mother and father were cuddling their sweet boy, beaming with pride and relieved with his health. And for a couple of days they remained there in the clean clinic with cheerful turquoise walls, but after those days they had to hike back up to their mountain hut and carry on with life as they knew it.  She didn’t dream of giving her cupcakes with sprinkles on his first birthday or a shiny new tricycle; I imagine she hoped to be able to feed her boy and help him grow into a strong young man. Isn’t that what we all hope?

Nearly 15 years later I find myself with 2 little boys of my own and living in Switzerland. I have experienced miscarriage, having a sick baby and many a medical procedure but all with the best medical care and resources at my fingertips.  Sometimes living in Switzerland I fail to see any need. It’s clear that providing meals and clean clothes here is not the primary struggle but I bet there are moms that struggle with Postpartum depression, have babies that don’t breastfeed like they had hoped and struggle with sick children that they can’t make well. Moms around the globe have the same heart to have healthy, happy children. I am reminded of the quote from Ravi Zacharias’s book “Recapture the Wonder”, “To think that he was once a baby, held in the arms of his mother while she dreamed great dreams for him”. What would it look like for moms around the globe to have their dreams become a reality instead of losing their little ones to preventable diseases?  Zacharias goes on to write, “A baby throbbing with life is embodied promise. The birth day gives birth to more than a life-it gives birth to new hopes”.

ABC news has launched a Million Moms Challenge in conjunction with the United Nations Foundation. World Moms Blog Bloggers are getting involved to spread the word.  They are looking to raise awareness for mother’s and children’s health around the world. It is super easy to sign their petition and for the first 100,000 that that sign up Johnson & Johnson will donate $1. This money will be used to provide for the needs of mothers and children to give them things like vaccines. (The vaccines I cringe about but save my children’s lives!)  I often feel like there isn’t much I can do…this seems like a simple way to help! Just click here to sign the petition and read more about the situations of mothers and children around the globe.