As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I’ve been a little homesick lately. When we moved here, I knew that giving up our life in California, as well as my job, would be challenging and, to be honest, I expected to go through a period like this.

When you get pregnant or have a baby, there’s this period where you kind of mourn the loss of your old life. It’s not because you’re unhappy being pregnant or unhappy with your new baby, it’s just the fact that you have to adjust to the idea that your old way of life has fully ceased to exist with the arrival of this little bundle of joy.

Similarly, while I was really excited to embark on this new adventure of living in a new city in a new country and having the opportunity to stay home with Prim on top of that, I wasn’t under the impression that the adjustment would be seamless and easy.

I miss California, I miss our old house, I miss my job and my co-workers. I miss my family and our friends and the routines, habits, and hangouts we had built over many years in the Bay Area. I miss our support system and our network of mama and toddler friends.

I am trying to focus on the positives of being out here. Spending so much time with Prim everyday is such a gift (albeit one that requires a lot of work) and the opportunities we have to travel and meet new people and be exposed to a different way of life are really unmatched. I’m looking forward to really taking advantage of KC’s vacation days (European vacation time, man — it’s amazing!) and hopefully hitting up the Alsatian Christmas markets when the holidays arrive, and planning a big trip to Italy at some point so KC can experience the amazingness that is real Italian food. It’s also been really exciting to be exposed to a different work culture here (via KC, of course), as the Dutch have the very European outlook of “life > work.” People here make no apology for the fact that they work to live, not the other way around. And while they see work as important, it’s not nearly as important as the rest of life (hence why they take the entire month of August off to go on holiday every year).

So yeah, it’s great here, but it’s also hard. And right now I’m definitely counting the days until our visit back to the states.