We have officially been gone from Arizona for 21 days. Our 14 months around the world has begun!
Although, if I’m honest, these first few weeks haven’t really looked like what the rest of our journey will probably look like.
We spent our first week traveling in the US, so it didn’t completely feel like we had left yet. Then we arrived in Bali and almost immediately split up from Daddy for 12 days.
We did manage to see him for one night halfway through, but for most of those days it was just me and the three kids. And maybe that was exactly what I needed.
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Where did Massy go?
Mass is doing a three-year workshop in Bali, spending 12 days here each year.
In fact, his workshop is one of the reasons we decided that our travels would begin in Bali and eventually bring us back here again in 2019.
After everything that had happened in the months leading up to this trip, my plan for those 12 days alone with the kids was very simple: Do as little as possible.
We had been so busy getting ready to leave. There had been so much to organize, finish, sell and say goodbye to.
Now I wanted to relax. I wanted to help the kids adjust to the enormous time difference, we were 15 hours ahead of Arizona, and hopefully start finding some kind of rhythm that could become our new normal as we traveled.
Those were my great plans. Did they work? Somewhat!
The Reality of Jet Lag With Three Kids
For the first six days, we were going to bed at around 7 pm.
We would put on old episodes of Full House and by 7:45 everyone was completely out.
Sounds perfect, right? Not exactly.
I would wake up at 1 am. Then 3 am. Then 4 am. Then 5 am.
If I was lucky, the kids would manage to sleep until about 5:30.
At that point, Luca was awake, jumping on everyone and ready to start the day! The only problem was that Bali was still dark.
We were staying in a new house, and I’ll admit that I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about wandering around it with three kids before daylight. So we had to find ways to entertain ourselves until the sun came up.
Check out our YouTube video to see what the house looked like so you will understand better what I mean!
Calling the Grandparents at Ridiculous Hours
Our best jet-lag entertainment turned out to be FaceTiming the grandparents. Obviously, they were very happy to see their grandchildren.
Our understanding of time zones, however, still needed a little work.
Calling Nonna in the US wasn’t a problem because it was afternoon for her.
The Nonni in Italy? Not quite so lucky. It was the middle of the night. Oops!
I had completely forgotten to check the time before calling!
Thankfully, grandparents are amazingly patient when three jet-lagged grandchildren suddenly appear on their phone.
Even at completely inappropriate hours.
Finding Our New Rhythm
For those first few days, we deliberately kept life simple.
We had found a decent grocery store nearby, so I could prepare breakfast and dinner at home. Although our bodies had absolutely no idea when they were supposed to eat.
We would have breakfast at around 6:15 am…and by 9:30 everyone was starving again!
Jet lag does very strange things to you.
As for spending all day alone with three kids, I’ll be honest: That wasn’t actually the difficult part.
But I did need some kind of plan. Because three bored kids left entirely to their own devices can become extremely creative. And not necessarily in ways a mother appreciates. I have stories. But I’ll save those for another post…
What I didn’t realize yet was that these ordinary days, figuring out breakfast, walking to the beach, swimming, dealing with tired kids and simply spending hours together, were going to give me something I hadn’t really expected from this trip.
Time to actually be with them.
Morning Challenges
The first morning I had what seemed like the perfect plan: “Let’s go to the beach!”
The kids could run wild, I could sit there enjoying the ocean air and everybody would be happy.
Well…I had forgotten that we were staying in a very popular surfing area.
In the mornings, the tide and waves at Berawa Beach meant there was hardly any beach for us to actually sit on. So much for my peaceful morning by the ocean!
Luckily, in 2018 we could go to FINNS Beach Club, which was right in front of the beach. During the month we were there, we could simply order something from the bar and use the pool for a few hours. Guess where we had our second breakfast every morning?
We would leave the house ridiculously early. By about 7:45 am, we’d already had enough of being home and were ready to go somewhere. There was just one problem. FINNS didn’t open until 9 am! So there was still a lot of time to fill.
Just a note if you’re reading this today: this was our experience in 2018. FINNS Beach Club has changed considerably since then and is no longer a place to take young children, so always check current information when planning your visit.
Three Kids at Three Very Different Stages
One of the challenges I was beginning to understand was just how different our three kids’ needs were.
There is a pretty big age gap between our first two and Luca. Sometimes I felt like I was dealing with almost-teenagers on one side and a toddler on the other.
Everyone could be happily jumping in the pool when suddenly my “teenager”, who was actually only nine, would decide he was hungry. Or bored. Or simply that it was time to go home. I’d look at the clock. 10 am.
What was I supposed to do for the rest of the morning?
Especially when my master plan had been to tire out the toddler enough that he would take a nice long nap and maybe, just maybe, I could relax for a little while too.
Some days it actually worked. Luca would fall asleep before we even made it home.
Other days? He would arrive back at the villa completely energized and ready to jump straight into the pool again. No nap. No break for Mommy.
I was quickly learning that traveling with kids wasn’t suddenly going to make our days peaceful and perfectly organized. We were still us. Just in Bali.
Afternoon Fun at the Beach
By the afternoon, the tide had changed and we could finally head back to the beach. Once again, I had a beautiful vision in my head. The kids would play happily while I sat on the sand, enjoying the view and appreciating this wonderful new life we had created.
Of course, that didn’t happen either.
Emma was digging enormous pools in the sand and obviously needed my help because hers had to be the biggest pool on the beach.
Cosimo was running in and out of the waves and wanted me to be wild with him.
He was also still debating whether he wanted to learn to surf…and apparently I might have to learn with him.
Then there was Luca. He had decided he was afraid of the waves and wanted absolutely nothing to do with the ocean. What did he want to play in instead? The dirty water running onto the beach.
Oh boy. It smelled terrible!
So much for sitting peacefully on the sand.
By the end of every day, I was exhausted. But I was also incredibly satisfied. Because for once, all of my time had been dedicated to them.
I was playing with them. Listening to them. Dealing with the difficult moments. Helping them work through little problems. And finding tiny life lessons in situations I probably wouldn’t even have noticed before.
The Bright Side of Being Alone With My Kids
These days alone with my kids have been incredibly special.
Of course, there has been plenty of craziness. Jet lag. Boredom. Toddler tantrums. A little almost-teenage drama. And absolutely no sign of those peaceful afternoons I had imagined for myself.
But it has all been worth it. I think I needed this time alone with them.
Before we left, my mind was constantly somewhere else. There was always something that needed to be done. Something to organize. Something to finish. Something to sell. Something to worry about.
Now I had organized everything I needed to organize. I had finished the work I needed to finish. I had sold everything I needed to sell. And suddenly, there was nowhere else I needed to be. This year was for them.
What Our Kids Really Want From Us
As parents, we are always wishing we had more time with our children.
More time to talk. More time to listen. More time to experience things together.
But even when we physically have that time, our minds can still be somewhere else. We’re worrying about tomorrow. We’re thinking about work. We’re planning meals, organizing schedules and trying to make sure everybody has everything they need. And we convince ourselves that all of those things are part of being a good parent.
Of course they are.
But watching my kids during these days made me realize something else.
Sometimes what they want from us is much simpler.
They want us.
They want us to stop what we’re doing and play a game. Jump in the pool. Go wild in the waves. Read a book. Listen to a story that seems incredibly important to them even if we don’t completely understand why. Or simply sit beside them and have a little chat.
Our kids don’t always need us to organize their lives for them. Sometimes they just want us to be part of the life they’re already living.
Being Present Doesn’t Mean Having All the Answers
Listening to the kids during these days, their ideas, their projects, their thoughts and their millions of questions, made me realize that most of the time they didn’t expect me to have all the answers. They simply wanted to know that I was really listening.
Sometimes I knew the answer. Sometimes I didn’t. And that was okay.
We could talk about it, think about it or figure out the answer together.
Maybe that’s part of what I was beginning to understand about this year too.
I didn’t need to have everything planned for them. I didn’t need to constantly entertain them. And I certainly didn’t need to know everything. I just needed to be there.
Mom Guilt
Of course, spending so much uninterrupted time with my kids also gave me plenty of time to think. And with that came some mom guilt.
Sometimes I worry that I haven’t always been the best parent I could have been.
There have been too many distractions and too many things that seemed incredibly important at the time but, when I really think about it, will never be more important than my kids. But being a parent isn’t something we go to school for.
There isn’t a manual telling us exactly what to do at every age and every stage. We learn as we go.
We make mistakes. We try something different. We hope we’re making the right decisions. And when we realize we could do something better, hopefully we give ourselves the chance to change.
I feel like this journey has given us an opportunity to become less distracted and more present with our kids. But I don’t think traveling should be the only way to do that. We should be able to practice it wherever we are. Because this trip isn’t really a vacation for us.
Okay…Maybe the Bali part feels a little like one!
But what we’re beginning is something much bigger.
Why We’re Really Doing This
We see this time away as a year of continuous change, continuous movement, continuous growth and continuous challenges.
And we’ve deliberately chosen to go through all of it together. We want to grow as a family. We want to grow individually. We want the kids to experience different places, people and ways of living. And we want to share what we learn along the way.
I know there will be difficult moments.
There already have been.
But these first few weeks have reminded me why we wanted to do this in the first place. It isn’t simply about showing our kids the world. It’s about having the time to experience it with them.
Time to Regroup With Daddy
And now my 12 days alone with the kids are coming to an end. As Cosimo and Emma love to say, it’s finally time to “regroup” with Daddy.
I’m tired. I’ve had very little time alone. My peaceful mornings didn’t happen. Neither did those relaxing afternoons sitting quietly on the beach.
But I wouldn’t change these days. I’m grateful to my kids for giving me the chance to be their mother. For constantly giving me opportunities to learn and be better for them. For loving me even when I don’t get everything right. And simply for being my beautiful little human beings.
Now it’s time for the five of us to be together again and continue what we came here to do: Go out there, experience the world as a family and share it with all of you.
Looking Back Eight Years Later
Reading these words today, eight years after I first wrote them, makes this post even more meaningful to me.
At the time, I thought we had given ourselves 14 months.
I had no idea those 14 months would turn into years of traveling together. And I definitely didn’t know how quickly those three little kids in these photos would grow up.
But the lesson I was beginning to understand during those 12 days in Bali is probably even more important to me now: Being present doesn’t mean creating the perfect day for your kids.
Sometimes it’s digging a hole in the sand when you’d rather be sitting down. Sometimes it’s listening to another endless story. Sometimes it’s answering a million questions, or admitting you don’t know the answer. And sometimes it’s simply being beside them.
I thought I was giving my kids my time during those days in Bali.
Looking back now, I realize they were giving me something too: the chance to really experience that moment of their childhood while I was still in it.
Continue the journey with:
If you are planning a trip to Bali, these stops should definitely be on your radar:
- The Magical Gili Islands with Kids: Gili Trawangan & Gili Meno
- 9 Amazing Things to Do in Candidasa with Kids: A Family Guide Malaysian Borneo: Wildlife, Ecotourism, and Adventure
- 8 Fun Things to Do in Canggu with Kids: Our Family Experience
- Best Beaches in Uluwatu for Families: 4 Beautiful Beaches We Tried
I hope our experience helps you plan an unforgettable Bali adventure of your own!
