Three Years a Nomad and Two Babies Born Abroad - The Global Life
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KL Forest Eco Park, Kuala Lumpur
Our Travel Story > Three Years a Nomad and Two Babies Born Abroad - The Global Life
The Nomad Lifestyle - 3 Years
Today (March 28th, 2021) marks the day that we have officially been traveling the world for THREE FULL YEARS by using strategies that we discuss in our Free Nomad Guide. Last year, we wrote about our second year traveling the world, and the year before that we wrote about our first year traveling the world - and now we are back to let you know how the third year went - a full year of traveling with a toddler, living through coronavirus lockdowns, AND having our second baby overseas ALL on a budget of less than $2,000/month!
We left off in the last article after just flying out of New Zealand and arriving in Penang, Malaysia with our 1-year old baby, Waltoshi. And only a few weeks after we arrived, on the very day that our son turned 13-months old, he suddenly decided that he could stand up, and then he started walking - ready to explore the world!
Below is our emotional journey over our third year - but you can skip to our highlights and lessons learned near the bottom if you’d prefer (for a shorter read).
Waltoshi Hangs out on our balcony, Butterworth, Penang
Lockdown in Penang, Malaysia
Sadly, our son wouldn’t get to explore much at all, even though he could now walk. Just 5 days after finding his feet, on March 18th, 2020, our lockdown began. As parents who always work from home and travel together, we were used to living this way before the lockdown began. So, the lockdown wasn’t incredibly difficult for us. To make staying at home easier for other people, we published a couple of Disney-related Staycation articles to help them find enjoyment at home as well.
Overall, we spent 47 days in a fairly full scale lockdown. The pool was closed, but we made it a point to walk around the building, a high-rise condo, for a few hours each week so that our son could get some sunlight. Talk about low-scale adventures!
Even so, that didn’t come without surprises. As Jenny was feeling sick, Bradley made a special stop to the pharmacy just over 3 weeks into the lockdown. The results? We were now expecting another child - exciting news!
Kek Lok Si Temple, Penang, Malaysia
Becoming a Green Zone & Exploring Penang, Malaysia
It only took 38 days for Penang to reach 0 new daily cases - so, businesses began opening back up in limited capacity on May 4th. It was quite a success story for Malaysia. Once we reached 14 days of 0 new cases, on May 9th, the government declared Penang to be a Green Zone, meaning that we were essentially free of coronavirus! However, as our onward flight to Taiwan was canceled and our visas now about to expire, we were worried that we’d have to find a way to leave soon. Luckily, Malaysia decided to automatically extend our visas until they had officially removed all lockdown restrictions!
Leading the way as one of the first Green Zone’s, we were now free to explore Penang. Thus, we immediately moved to the George Town area where everything was located.
Having “real freedom” - without the coronavirus - one of the first places that we explored was The Habitat - a rainforest ecotourism site that sits near the top of Penang Hill and has a Forest Bathing experience! Over the next couple of weeks we managed to explore some of the other highlights of Penang, such as the Penang Botanic Gardens, the City Park, Penang Hill, an aquarium and dinosaur exhibit at The TOP Penang, the famous Kek Lok Si Temple, and Tanjung Bungah Public Beach. We even found some time to wander around George Town to check out the street art and Fort Cornwallis area. Overall, we enjoyed Penang after we were free to explore it.
Lost World of Tambun, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
Learning More about Malaysia - Ipoh, Perak
Having nationally lowered new coronavirus cases to the single digits by June 9th, Malaysia decided to relax their conditional lockdown once again - to a “Recovery Lockdown.” This opened up the different States of Malaysia to each other and allowed us to start a road trip down the western coast. Our first stop was the city of Ipoh in the State of Perak.
While researching The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat - a breathtaking resort set in a magical mountainside - that sadly turned out not to accept children - we learned about and gained the inspiration to visit the Lost World of Tambun just next to it. This theme-park turned out to be far more amazing than we had expected and made us feel like we were walking around on the ground near the floating mountains of Pandora (scenes in the movie Avatar)!
Ipoh is also famous for its large number of Cave Temples - of which we visited a few because Jenny really has a fascination with caves! We definitely recommend checking out the Perak Tong Cave Temple and the Kek Lok Tong Cave Temple - both remarkably stunning caves (with great views and decorations)!
Mossy Forest - Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Visiting the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia
We aren’t sure how it works in a country that is warm year round, but the higher altitude and cooler weather in the Cameron Highlands happens to draw in many Malaysians for their holiday retreats. This area is also well known for their tea plantations and strawberry farms. Thus, as it wasn’t too far away from Ipoh, we decided to head there for a few days to check it out.
Our first stop was the Jim Thompson Tea Room at the Cameron Highlands Resort for some High Tea, a staple for this destination. This 5-star hotel is very fancy looking and even has a friendly looking Koi pond, of which our 1-year old son remarkably stuck his hand in the water and pet on of them exclaiming “FISH!!”
The following day we visited the main highlights of the Cameron Highlands: the BOH Tea Center (a tea plantation), the Mossy Forest (remarkably like Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings), and Raaju’s Hill Strawberry Farm. During our strawberry picking session, our son kept snatching strawberries when we weren’t looking and basically inhaling them. I guess he liked them (sorry Raaju!). Before we left on Saturday, we stopped at The Smokehouse, a very English-looking hotel and restaurant, for some more high-tea and scones. This one was a bit more affordable and plentiful than at the Jim Thompson Tea Room, and it had extremely beautiful gardens!
Jenny & Waltoshi in KLCC Park overlooking Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur
Exploring the Big City of Kuala Lumpur
On our first stop in Kuala Lumpur, we stayed for only a week - and were rightly exhausted from our adventures in Ipoh and the Cameron Highlands. However, we stayed at the Soho KLCC by G-Suites and really enjoyed the access to just about everything - international foods and the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC)! Thus, we explored the entire KLCC area, and had Spanish, German, and Irish food while we were there.
KLCC has the PETRONAS Twin Towers, the Aquaria aquarium, a decent sized park, a 6-story mall, Petrosains (a science discovery center), and the symphony lake water show. So, there was plenty to do and see while we were moderately relaxing!
Note: We did see much more of Kuala Lumpur later (see below).
MINI Malaysia & ASEAN Cultural Park, Malacca
The Amazing Food & History in Malacca (Melaka)
When we initially arrived in Malacca, we ended up staying at the Bayou Lagoon Water Park because it was available at such an incredible discount that we simply couldn’t pass it up. However, our impression of what Malacca was supposed to be - a major historical location and foodie paradise - was completely unmet and we were sad about it.
Based on our location, we decided to visit the Mini Malaysia & ASEAN Cultural Park - and were quite happy that we did. Almost nobody was there, as it’s more for international tourists to learn about Malaysian culture - and no international tourists were being let into the country just yet, so it was both very fascinating and quite secluded! A very cool find indeed.
However, we knew that most of the historical places were closer to the city center, so we decided to book a decent place down there for a few nights before we left, simply to check it out. WOW! Malacca is AMAZING. After a night walk along the Malacca river, and then a short cruise up and down it the following morning, we decided to walk all over this small city - getting our fill of the historical colonial era. Then we walked up and down Jonker Street - which was filled with amazing Peranakan and Nyonya food locations. The taste was just incredible!
View from D’Pristine overlooking Medini Mall & Legoland Hotel, Johor
A Feeling Like-Home in Johor: Fun at Legoland & SEALIFE Park
Next, was our return to Johor Bahru - a place that we spent a few months at the following year while exploring Singapore. Plus, as Jenny was now about 6 months pregnant, we had to decide on a hospital to give birth at soon. So, we headed to the Medini area of Johor Bahru.
It felt weird - in a sense like we were “back home” - when we passed the traffic circle that was near the place we stayed in May and June of 2019, only 13 ½ months earlier. Sure, we were technically staying in a different Serviced Apartment this time - D’Pristine, but everything in the neighborhood was essentially the same. We felt like we were home.
To spice things up a little while waiting for the baby to show up, we decided to buy an annual pass to Legoland Malaysia with SEALIFE Park included - as it was only about $82 per adult and free for children under 3 years old! Waltoshi really enjoyed walking around SEALIFE Park about once a week to see all of the fish and sharks.
Bayou Water Villas, Leisure Farm, Johor
Relaxing at Leisure Farm and Afiniti Wellness
When “Recovery Lockdown” began on June 9th, we were told that our visas were extended through August 31st. Thus, August was a bit worrisome for us as we still didn’t know if we’d have to leave Malaysia for another country, like South Korea or the USA, to have our baby. Once we were informed that we would be extended again until December 31st, we felt safe enough to relax again for awhile. Since we were getting tired of staying only at Serviced Apartments, we found a house to stay at instead - in a place called Leisure Farm.
It was an amazingly serene and relaxing place to stay - with plenty of security and very low traffic - we could walk down the streets with almost no cars passing by. We saw a variety wildlife: plenty of fish, a tribe of monkeys, some Chinese geese, a few Asian monitor lizards, geckos, and unique species of birds.
Just before the last month of pregnancy began, we moved to Afiniti Residence, as it is just between Legoland (and SEALIFE Park) and Gleneagles Hospital Medini Johor (where we’d be having our baby). Additionally, it has a wellness area that is basically a small bamboo forest with waterfalls and a misting pool. It is super relaxing to walk around in or simply just to sit down for awhile. Actually, it was designed by the same company that designed Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. It was perfect for what we needed.
Forest City Marina Hotel, Forest City, Johor
Forest City - the “Mini-China” in Malaysia
Our visit to Forest City completely shook our worldview! Forest City is a massive futuristic city-island, in Iskandar Puteri, that is a stunningly beautiful, nature inspired city. It made me feel like western countries were so far behind in technology, infrastructure, and human-directed progress that the phrase “China is going to take over the world” wasn’t just a phrase to me anymore - it is likely going to become a reality.
Not because of how amazing it is - but mainly because it has a 90% Chinese population, and the primary language - including menus and sales brochures - is Mandarin. For a place built in Malaysia, it is odd to see such a massive “mini-China” so close to everything else.
They have built a few cities like this in Malaysia, as well as others in Sydney and London. Plus, they’ve just been approved for one in Jamaica as well. Fairly eerie, but amazing!
Afiniti Residences, Medini, Johor
Virtual Articles and additions to the Nomad Guide
Back at Afiniti, we decided to refocus our efforts on more Staycation articles - to help people “escape” while they were staying safe at home - to the countries of France, Mexico, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United States.
Additionally, we expanded the Nomad Guide section of our site - as many people across the world had lost their jobs - adding articles on consulting on Upwork, being a Guide or Instructor on Airbnb Experiences, earning passive income with Investments, becoming a Scuba Diving instructor, writing a book and becoming an Author, and teaching English in a Foreign Country.
While we were doing that, we received packages from each of our families, as well as from our good friends Shannon & Gustavo, so that we could enjoy the flavors of the Thanksgiving and Christmas season in the United States. It was a massive blessing and a huge highlight to receive these gifts - we literally cried with happiness! They are the best!
Jenny, Ellie, and Waltoshi on Thanksgiving Morning, Gleneagles Hospital Medini Johor
The Birth of Ellie - Our Daughter is Born in Malaysia
Malaysia had allowed some business people to come into Malaysia and self-quarantine - a few did not actually self-quarantine. Thus, a couple new outbreaks occurred in Malaysia so the government made it mandatory to quarantine in government facilities instead. Only a bit too late. The spread intensified across the whole country - due to an election in one of the hot-spots - and the government had no choice than to revert back to a “Conditional Lockdown”. This meant we could no longer bring our son to the hospital during Ellie’s birth.
So, we found a nanny and bought a home security camera.
Then, a week earlier than the due date, labor began. For our son’s birth, we used the “Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way” book to help us decide when to go to the hospital. We used it again for Ellie’s birth, but we adjusted our window to make sure we would be at the hospital a few hours earlier as they needed to give us both Covid-19 tests to determine if we would be allowed to be in the same room as Ellie after her birth. They used the brain stab method up the nostril. It was painful, but we were clear. Our completely natural birth, in the hospital, was all that we hoped it would be after learning a few lessons from our sons birth.
Putuo Village, Kulai, Johor
Exploring Johor Bahru - Eco Spring Labs, Little Paris, Toppen, and Putuo Village
Over the following month, we focused primarily on relaxing as much as we could as well as organizing the paperwork required for Ellie’s important documents, such as her Malaysian Birth Certificate, her U.S. Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA - giving her U.S. citizenship at birth), her U.S. Passport, and her Social Security Number. Organizing the paperwork and photos for that is quite a challenge.
Yet, we still found a little time to go out to the Eco Spring Labs, Little Paris, and Toppen Mall on the day that we went to pick up her birth certificate.
On a separate day we also stopped in at Putuo Village. This place is “a serene and scenic place rich in Buddhism essence and cultural elements.” It is surrounded by a bamboo forest and has a wishing tree, a prayer wheel corridor, a prayer path, a thousand Buddha wall, and some very Instagrammable spots in their sacred bamboo grove. It really is one of the most amazing places to see and explore near Johor Bahru!
Our Christmas Panettone
Christmas Festivities
It’s hard to explain how our Christmases have been on our 3 year journey - but lets just say that in year 1, in Cape Town, we were located on Long Street and that the noise from outside was comparable to Mardi Gras until 5 AM. In year 2, in Auckland, we ended up staying in a house with another family (so we thought it would be fun) but they also had 5+ other tenants there, who didn’t celebrate Christmas, which made it cramped and awkward.
This year, in our own place in Johor, we managed to find plenty of Christmas lights, candles, movies, cookies, and decorations to have the festive home and celebration that we’d been craving for a few years. We also tried a new Christmas tradition - as it was abundant at the grocery stores in Johor - with a full sized panettone! Plus, we had plenty of gifts from family and friends - sent from abroad - (that we wrapped ourselves) to open on Christmas morning.
It felt very reminiscent of the Christmas celebrations back home as we even invited our family to join us on a Christmas morning Zoom call - even though we were 12-13 hours ahead of them!
Arte Plus Residences, Kuala Lumpur
A Quick Return to Kuala Lumpur & Another Canceled Flight to the USA
While we were scheduled to return to Kuala Lumpur anyway, to get Ellie’s passport and CRBA, we didn’t expect that Malaysia would stop automatically extending our visas after December 31st. That happened, and we scrambled to book flights to the USA and appointments with the U.S. Embassy so that we could leave Malaysia within 14 working days!
The photos below are from the Arte Plus Residences that we stayed at for a few weeks and the “Shoppes at Four Seasons Place” that were decorated for Chinese New Year. They were short stops during our chaotic few days. But that chaos lasted for only 5 days - and then Malaysia came out with a statement saying that they were actually going to be extending us again!
Just after we learned the good news, we also learned that the U.S. Capitol Building was being attacked. Rather than fly back during that chaos, we decided to change our flight dates to March 31st, 2021 and stay in Kuala Lumpur a while longer.
Riding the Train together on our way to KL Bird Park, Kuala Lumpur
Staying in Malaysia Even Longer - And Awaiting the Vaccine
After getting ourselves situated in a place that we could stay a little while longer, as we were now set to leave on March 31st, we began to search around for a few little gifts for Waltoshi’s 2nd birthday. We learned that balloons are a very inexpensive, and lightweight, toy that can turn into instant fun while traveling.
Malaysia announced that they would be offering free vaccines to everyone who was in their country, including foreigners on super-extended social-visit visas! That’s great news for us, but we likely won’t be eligible for them until July or August at the earliest. Additionally, our littles are still not likely to be able to get vaccines until December of 2022.
Once settled in a place that we could stay at a bit longer, we brought our kids to the KL Bird Park and the Perdana Botanical Gardens. A couple of weeks later, we finally made our way out to the Batu Caves - one of the main “go-to” locations in Kuala Lumpur. We kept socially distanced, and wore masks (because it’s safe and it’s the law in Malaysia) everywhere we went.
Waiting for the Train to Arrive - Where it’ll go we don’t yet know!
Heading Onward - The Uncertain Future
Currently, we are still waiting on Malaysia to let us know if they are going to extend our visas again after March 31st. Until we know that, we don’t know exactly what our plans will be going forward. As it stands now, we are hoping that they’ll extend us further - at least until they allow us to receive our vaccines.
In the meantime, we were thinking of taking a short trip out to the little French village in Berjaya Hills and Genting Highlands. Then we plan to head to Langkawi Island, the Perhentian Islands, Redang Island, and Teman Negara National Park over the next 3-9 months.
However, if our visas aren’t extended, we were looking at Eastern Europe, Sri Lanka, or Tanzania… but, we are still actually hoping that Vietnam or another place a little closer by might let us in instead. Chances are that we may end up in the USA. If so, we’ll get our vaccines there and head south with major stops in Mexico, Costa Rica, and onwards towards South America.
Honestly, we aren’t really sure. And that’s the chaos of being travelers in the coronavirus times. Follow us on our social media accounts to see where we end up!
**UPDATE: Malaysia did not extend our visas after March 31st and we ended up needing to leave by April 21st. Thus, we headed off to Turkey and will be going onward to Albania after that. When vaccines are available for our kids, we'll return to the USA to get the vaccine and then head onward to Latin America.
Riding the Legoland Train, Legoland Malaysia, Johor
The Growth of Our Blog
1. Our Challenges
Learning how to be parents to an active toddler while keeping safe during the pandemic. Also, every 3 months or so, we had to spend the last month planning where to go if we had to leave Malaysia or if they would extend our visas again - something that is difficult to deal with mentally because at least 4 or 5 times over the last year we’ve had to double plan - with most “alternate” places to go all closed off.
2. Our Goals & Achievements
Our goals during this year were to complete unfinished travel blogs, finish up our budget traveling articles from the past, expand our food posts, and work on SEO.
We did make SEO a primary part of article creation and even posted a few new travel blogs this year. Additionally, we also prepared and wrote up a few dozen more for release after travel begins to pick up again. However, we needed to refocus due to the length and severity of the pandemic. Thus, we didn’t really create any new budget traveling or food articles this year.
Instead we focused on creating many Staycation articles to help people enjoy travel-from-home as most people around the world were sheltering at home. We also worked on Nomad Guide articles to help people learn how to earn additional sources of income as many people had lost their jobs.
Last year, we were also considering new sections on “retiring overseas” and “budgeting and investment income” to diversify our business for times when people don’t - or can’t - travel, such as during the Novel Coronavirus outbreak. We are adding a “Retiring Overseas” service this year, and planning to write a few articles to explain how it works. We did release a few investment income articles with the Nomad Guide, however it didn’t become its own section on our site.
3. Website Traffic
Over the last year we’ve accumulated 44,281 more page views (-4.4% yr/yr) and 35,473 more visits (+3.4% yr/yr). So, our totals are now 108,884 total page views and 78,240 total visits. We are currently receiving about 1,969 page views per month, although we did get as high as 14,550 in April of 2020 before the travel industry was hit by the coronavirus. We estimate that we lost at least 80-90% of our traffic and revenue over the last 12 months due to this.
4. Marketing Strategies
Our current marketing strategies consist of sharing posts in Facebook groups, occasional targeted Facebook advertising, occasional Pinterest campaigns, standard SEO, and adding share buttons inside our articles. We’ve also been more focused on a select number of affiliates lately, as sponsorships have mostly dried up this year.
If you have any advice for us, please feel free to share it!
Learn more about our second year of traveling as parents, the highlights of year 3 of traveling the world, and some of our mishaps below!
All of us together, Christmas Morning, 2020.
The Second Year of Parenthood while Traveling the World
There's a difference between a newborn and a toddler. As we are full time at-home parents, we've learned that we must take turns working and parenting.
Our son has enjoyed seeing different animals, birds, and fish throughout our Malaysia trip, despite occasional lockdowns. He is an excellent runner already and now likes to “vroom” around the house. He's even learned how to jump! He says many words and phrases, and puts them together in understandable ways to help direct us. He's also been interested in pointing out cars, trucks, buses, and trains.
He used to try just about any food, but now he is much more picky. Plus, he'll love to eat some foods one day and hate them the next. His favorites right now would be fruits, berries, cucumbers, noodles, rice, French toast, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, yogurt, chips, and especially black olives.
Ellie is already 4 months old! She has been such a quiet and sweet baby - a stark contrast with how Waltoshi was when he was an infant. We are so lucky for that! She even coos at us and tries to talk. She loves being held and simply in our presence wherever we are at. She likes to try to stand, with our full support, as well. She’s even figured out how to roll over by herself on occasion.
Waltoshi catches Ellie's attention often as he's always running around. They get along wonderfully, and Waltoshi loves to cherish his little sister. He tries to comfort her when she's sad, offering her toys and his blankets. He kisses her head and hugs her too! It's so sweet.
However, it has taken a toll on us to have to keep them away from other people - and kids - with this pandemic. It's hard knowing that we can get a vaccine now, but that our kids likely won't be able to get them until the end of 2022. Countries are starting to let in vaccinated persons, but our kids won't be vaccinated. We aren't sure how this will affect our travels yet.
All of us together at Putuo Village, Johor
Highlights from our 3rd year of travel
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
Exploring 6 areas of Malaysia as a family.
Eating local cuisine – Strawberry Tea (Cameron Highlands), Nasi Lemak (Kuala Lumpur), Cendol, Chicken Rice Balls, Nyonya Laksa (Malacca), Durian and Sweet Corn Ice Cream (Johor).
Doing a Forest Bathing experience at the Habitat, exploring the beautiful Kek Lok Si, and wandering around George Town to see the street art in Penang.
Being wowed by the unreal scenery at the Lost World of Tambun, exploring the incredibly breathtaking Kek Lok Tong Cave Temple, and climbing the many stairs to the top of the Perak Tong Cave Temple in Ipoh.
Visiting the BOH Tea Plantation, having High Tea at the Smokehouse, exploring the Mossy Forest, and eating all things strawberry in the Cameron Highlands.
Wandering around KLCC, exploring the Bird Park and Perdana Botanical Gardens, the Forest Eco Park, and seeing monkeys at the Batu Caves in Kuala Lumpur.
Having our mouths explore with flavor while exploring the historical city of Malacca, and visiting their Mini Malaysia Cultural Park.
Having our worldview changed at Forest City, relaxing at Leisure Farm and Afiniti, visiting the SEALIFE aquarium with Waltoshi, and exploring Putuo Village in Johor.
Giving birth to our baby girl, Ellie, in Malaysia.
Finally having a Christmas that felt like Christmas after 3 years of traveling.
Meeting a few new friends in Penang and Nusajaya.
Celebrating our third year of marriage.
Surviving the Covid-19 pandemic without getting the virus.
We have now visited 22 countries on this trip - and 39 in total (plus 2 territories) – from 5 different continents - mostly in North America and Europe, as well as a few in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
We’ve learned how to live large on a combined family budget of less than $2,000 per month - (less than $1,750 for two adults and less than $250 for 2 littles)!
Waltoshi’s first haircut, Eco Botanic City, Johor - The barber used the Buzzer…
Mishaps & Lessons Learned
As expected, we've definitely had a few mishaps and learning experiences this year.
Bad Locations: Even as experienced travelers, sometimes we pick a place in a bad location - only to have to travel fairly far to actually do anything. That happened when we first booked a place in Butterworth, Penang instead of on the island. We ended up spending lockdown in an area with not much to do. As soon as we were allowed to move to the island, we did. However, one day - while the window was open - we realized we had picked a place downwind from the Batu Gantung Crematorium. Ugh!
AirAsia: As countries around the world began locking down, many of our onward flights were canceled and refunded. However, AirAsia went bankrupt and thus didn't return our money. We still haven't received any compensation for that flight.
Car Return: When we booked our rental car from Penang to Kuala Lumpur, we picked the wrong location to return the car to. It ended up being an hour away from the same rental car company that was across the street from us - but it took a few hours of phone conversations and pleading to get them to allow us to return it there instead. Then we had to wait for someone to show up. All in, it took about 3-4 hours longer than we expected.
Bad Location 2: We also ended up picking a place in Malacca that was far away from the best things to do as well, but at least that place was super affordable and came with a water park! We ended up spending the first 14 of our 16 day Malacca adventure there… and crammed everything else into the last 2 days. Exhausting!
Malacca Grabs: Oh, and if you're ever in Malacca, we recommend requesting the upscale Grabs instead of the base fare. We had a number of VERY smelly rides, and even one car that kept having trouble staying on (the fuel injector had serious issues). We were using the “regular” Grabs…
The Haircut: When we arrived in Johor, we decided to finally take Waltoshi for his first haircut (he was about 18 months old already and his hair was bothering his eyes). The barber asked what style and we just said “like daddy’s.” Daddy had just received a clean haircut there… and we didn't think that our son might not like the buzzer. He hated it, and we had a hard time communicating to the barber that we wanted her to stop using it. Our son was crying bloody murder - honestly a traumatic experience for him!
Trapped: To relax, before our daughter Ellie was born, we stayed at a great place called Leisure Farm. However, as it was in a secluded area where we had to go through two different security gates to enter, there were almost never any Grabs in the area. Thus, we ended up being mostly stuck there with nothing to do but walk around the neighborhood. We wish we had rented a car!
The Pediatrician: After Ellie was born, we learned that our Pediatrician had absolutely no care in the world for kids. He neglected to determine her blood type from the placenta and thus jabbed her hand less than 24 hours after she was born. Then, he kept ordering jaundice tests even though she wasn't having issues. Then he wanted to do an invasive urine extract from her to test for liver disease when she had no symptoms of it, plus another blood test.
It was only after all of this happens that we realized he had convinced us to get our son an expensive meningococcal shot during covid lockdowns - a shot designed for keeping people well when living around large numbers of people in small spaces - completely the opposite from social distancing rules in place. It's like he saw kids as feelingless animals that he could use to gain more money. Now we never get anything before taking a few days to research it.
Exhaustive Planning: Last year we said that “we may end up having to wing it going forward” and that's what happened. Having stayed in Malaysia for the full year, to remain safe from areas with high levels of cases, we ended up saving a lot of money. However, every third month we had to make two sets of plans for moving forward over the next 3 months - as we didn't know if Malaysia would keep extending our visas or not. That's happened 4 times so far, and the hard part has always been trying to figure out what countries we could go to if we had to leave - as rules are constantly changing! It has been a very difficult thing to deal with mentally.
Mentally Tired: Having been locked away for many parts of the year, and having to juggle 2 littles now instead of just 1, we've also become a bit more demotivated to get up, get ready, and go out to do things. We sometimes feel like we're just living a regular life in a different country when we really want to be exploring the countries we go to more.
It looks like there will be more of that this year as well, even though we really want to go explore other countries. We may end up exploring more of Malaysia, at least until we are able to get our vaccines. That is, if we aren't forced to leave first.
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