You may say it's a sign of my having too much time on my hands, but keeping track of the duck families and how big the babies are growing has been one of my favorite pasttimes this spring. You just can't help but coo when you see the mom and dad ducks, followed by their waddling broods, getting in and out of the ponds in Vondel Park. They all look so happy. When I see them, I think about one of my favorite children's books, Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey. However, unlike Mr. and Mrs. Mallard, the duck parents in the book, Peter and I flew to Amsterdam after having children, not before. So I think, despite the Mallards' near-misses with cars and bicycles as they made their way around Boston, ours was the more complicated move.

One of the hardest parts of being an expat of a certain age is living so far away from your young-adult kids. The usual empty-nester cycle of watching them fly off (or shooing them off, as the case may be) and then welcoming them back to the nest is dramatically more...dramatic when you live so far away. This is especially so for folks like us who sold the childhood real estate and took away our kids' "home". For two weeks in May, Ben and Rachel visited again, and I got the chance once again to see the city through their eyes. When you live abroad, your kids can't come and go without you as much as they did when you were in the U.S. For those contending with late, late nights in the curfew-less heat of summer, you may think this sounds like bliss. For kids, it is definitely not blissful. They have to contend with seeing and being seen with you. That can be embarrassing. Maybe I'm not as "cool" as I think I am. I had the fantasy that while spending time with me, my kids might be humming a version of this song, their cover entitled: "To Mom, With Love". That turned out to be a tune only I was singing, to myself: "How do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume? It isn't easy, but I'll try!" I love this version of the song, sung by the wonderful Chaka Khan. By the way, my fantasy also includes every student from my ten years of teaching standing in a circle around me, singing this in unison. A girl can dream, can't she?

Here's Ben on his first day in Amsterdam at a lovely canal-side café along the Amstel River in the neighborhood known as Oost, (East). I love the majestic houses that line the street: the Weesperzijde. Even the name of the street is fancy.&nbsp… — Here's Ben on his first day in Amsterdam at a lovely canal-side café along the Amstel River in the neighborhood known as Oost, (East). I love the majestic houses that line the street: the *Weesperzijde.* Even the name of the street is fancy. I'll chalk Ben's embarrassment up to jet lag, rather than the fact that his mother was constantly trying to photograph him.

One thing I love about when the kids visit is getting to go places I haven't been, or revisiting places I want to show-off to them. When I found out that the Amsterdam Coffee Festival was taking place during Ben's visit, I knew I could make my move on that ultra hipster-event with Ben as my decoy.

He graciously agreed to pose for this photo, or maybe that's because he felt he had to. I had just purchased a tasting box of coffee from the CoffeeVine to be delivered to his doorstep in New York City.

This sign will give you an idea of the vibe at this coffee festival. There was lots of delicious and free samples of coffee and chocolate, and events like a latté art contest. I saw a sprinkling of old folks there (anyone over 30), but not many. The… — This sign will give you an idea of the vibe at this coffee festival. There was lots of delicious and free samples of coffee and chocolate, and events like a latté art contest. I saw a sprinkling of old folks there (anyone over 30), but not many. They were probably as bewildered as I was when they saw name of the street where the festival took place: *Ghostface Killahstraat*.

When the kids are in town, many of us expats find ourselves getting off our duffs to explore the sites outside of Amsterdam. This time, we headed to Utrecht, a medieval city with canals, charming shops, and lots of nooks and crannies. O.K., a smaller version of Amsterdam.

Utrecht = Amsterdam minus crowds of people

Those doorways actually lead to apartments. Now that's a view of the canal!

Lest you think Amsterdam is the only city with hipsters and hip coffee, this spot in Utrecht, The Village Coffee and Music will set you straight. Peter and I swiftly brought the hip vibe down when we crossed the threshold. — Lest you think Amsterdam is the only city with hipsters and hip coffee, this spot in Utrecht, *The Village Coffee and Music* will set you straight. Peter and I swiftly brought the hip vibe down when we crossed the threshold.

Even back on our "home" turf, we found some quiet spots. Rembrandtpark is huge, and has wide bike and walking paths. If you veer off the paths, you can find some places that make you forget you are in a city.

Here we are the day Rachel arrived, in Rembrandtpark. You can see that Casey was happy to no longer be an only child. — Here we are the day Rachel arrived, in *Rembrandtpark*. You can see that Casey was happy to no longer be an only child.

This is my first "tourist season" in Amsterdam, and I have already noticed the difference in the number of people in town. For some reason, I get asked for directions. A lot. Apparently, I need to carry a "Directionally Impaired" card with me so I can explain why I can't get anyone to their requested destination. With Ben and Rachel alongside, I noticed an uptick in the number of requests for directions to coffeeshops. Remember that in the Netherlands, a coffeeshop is not where you drink coffee or purchase coffee beans. One duet of young ladies were hunting for a coffeeshop on Haarlemerstraat when we happened upon them on Haarlemermeer, at least a 45 minute walk away from their desired puff. I had the chance to practice my rusty-French when we realized that they did not understand our loud-and-slow English or my beyond-creaky Dutch. You could sympathize with their dilemma, and I had some small sense of satisfaction in knowing it's not just me who finds the too-similar names of some streets here utterly perplexing.

One neighborhood I have explored more when I am with my kids is The Pijp. I think of it as the Soho of Amsterdam. It used to be inhabited by starving artists and some sketchy characters, but now there are more and more brunch spots, clothing stores, and designer coffee places. Also in the Pijp you can find the Albert Cuyp outdoor market (or, in yet another example of the Dutch love of the compound word: Albert Cuypmarkt), where you can pick up those priceless, hard-to-find items for your discerning friends.

Giving new meaning to a relaxing bath experience.

Although the Pijp is full of hustle and bustle, there is a wonderful park there for when you need to see some green: Sarphatipark. Samuel Sarphati was a true renaissance man: a physician and a city planner who worked to improve the quality of life in Amsterdam by improving public health and education. And he also saw to it that the swank Amstel Hotel was built because he thought it would make Amsterdam a more dignified place. I think he was right! I have this blog to thank for pushing me to do some research. I discovered that in 1942, the park was renamed Bollandpark, after a Mr. Bolland, because Mr. Sarphati was Jewish. The Sarphati name was (thankfully) restored after the war.

Here's Rachel at a global art project in the park: Before I Die.... It was created to get people to reflect on their lives and to share those reflections in public. We loved looking at all the different ways that visitors to the … — Here's Rachel at a global art project in the park: *Before I Die...*. It was created to get people to reflect on their lives and to share those reflections in public. We loved looking at all the different ways that visitors to the park completed the sentence. You can see that I want to see the Northern Lights, and...wait, what's that in Rachel's handwriting? "Before I die I want to be as cool as my mom." I'll remind her of that the next time I wear socks with my flip-flops.

Amsterdam is still an in-between place for my children: not quite home, but yet not a vacation spot either. I feel like I have to show them a good time here so that they will want to come more often. For some reason, I decided that should involve going to a concert with 19 year-old Rachel. I haven't been to a concert in a coon's age, or roughly since the expression "a coon's age" was used. But there we were on a Saturday night to see Matisyahu, the Jewish rap singer, at Melkweg (Milky Way). The venue has been a fixture of the Amsterdam music scene since 1970, right around the time I got my first album, Carole King's Tapestry. For those of you who live for Suzanne Vine trivia (i.e. none of you), that was not my first concert. It was Loggins and Messina, at the Jersey Shore. Come on Sabrina, you know you remember that one! For those of you who doubt that I actually went to the concert, here is the video proof. This was one of the long-ass songs that even Rae agreed was too loud and too long. That's Matisyahu meandering across the stage. Even he looks bored.

And here's more proof. Imagine my surprise when we walked into the concert and found a full bar in the back and seats around the perimeter for old people like me to park themselves on. In case you were wondering, I was not the only oldster there. An… — And here's more proof. Imagine my surprise when we walked into the concert and found a full bar in the back and seats around the perimeter for old people like me to park themselves on. In case you were wondering, I was not the only oldster there. And on the other side of the age spectrum, we even saw some some parents with little children. I guess concert-going is a bit different here than in the U.S. Thankfully, no one subjected a dog to the noise.

Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to replace the fun factor that Rachel's many friends from home provide. This is a trending topic among the American expats here: how to keep our teenage kids happy when they visit. I think the problem is exacerbated by social media. When I was that age, I had to use my imagination to supply the missing details of the parties I was missing when I had to hang out with my parents. Nowadays, the steady stream of texts and photos on Instagram let the teenager visiting her expat parents know, in excruciating real-time detail, exactly what she is missing. I don't know which is worse, since my imagination created some impossibly fun parties, but I think the current situation, with concrete proof, is much harder to bear.

I'm thinking beer may have been the secret ingredient that led to the abundance of hair in our high school and college days. — I'm thinking beer may have been the secret ingredient that led to the abundance of hair in our high school and college days.

When I think about the difficulties of parenting teenage children in general, and more specifically, parenting them from afar, I think back to some wise advice I got from my obstetrician back when I was pregnant with Ben. When I complained about my morning sickness, and asked when it was likely to end, Dr. Hlavin sat down next to me and said, "Do you mind if I give you some advice?" He went on to explain that now was a good time to begin to realize that if I always looked ahead to when one stage would end, before I knew it, "Your kids will be grown up and you'll wonder where all the time went. So just try to enjoy each stage - even the most difficult ones - and don't always look ahead to the next stage." Sound advice, and I quote it often, even if, at the time, I felt like shooting him. One thing no one ever admitted to me back when the kids were toddlers and parenting seemed hard was that level of "hard" was nothing compared to parenting teenagers and young adults. It's one of those parenting experiences that no one admits to, and we all just keep the secret to ourselves. Like the narrator in the song by Queen chants, "and bad mistakes, I've made a few". Parenting is, "no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise" at times. No one knows that more than my own mother, to whom I must say over and over again, "Mom, I'm so sorry for everything I put you through." And yet, we rise to the challenge like champions, and raise wonderful adults (fingers crossed).

At the end of Rachel's visit, were took a canal boat ride. Seeing Amsterdam from a boat gives you a different perspective, and you notice things you never would from the street. Seeing Amsterdam with your growing-up children is like a canal boat ride: a chance to see the world from a different point of view. Earlier this week, I had the great fortune to hear the writer Leslie Jamison talk about her book, The Empathy Exams, a collection of essays about the meaning of a word (empathy) that is often tossed around these days without any real attention to what it really means. Here's what she has to say about the ability to work on developing empathy: "Empathy isn't just something that happens to us - a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain - it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it's asked for, but this doesn't make our caring hollow. The act of choosing simply means we've committed ourselves to a set of behaviors greater than the sum of our individual inclinations...."

With Jamison's words in mind, I chose to think about what it would have been like if my parents had moved far away from my friends when I was in college. What? Miss a party that my friends were going to? That would have been excruciating. But being far away from "home" is also about much more than just missing parties. It's also about not having a home so that you can just hang out with friends and reconnect. So when I think back to the olden days, I have some insight into what it's like for my kids to no longer have a "home". I know how unsettled it feels when we come back to the U.S. and have to rely on the kindness of friends and family to put us up (and put up with us). It's home-like, but it's not home.

So the next time the expat conversation turns to how to help our kids adjust to our move, I'll try to remember what Dr. Hlavin said back when I was pregnant. I'll try not to look ahead to a time when the concept of "home" isn't quite as complicated and I'll try instead to embrace the complications and help my kids embrace them, too.

Now you can see that the ducklings are growing up. Let's see how Mr. and Mrs. Duck handle the teenage stage.

A rare photo of the two photographers. Keep in mind that this photo was taken in mid-May. Notice the layers. Spring in Amsterdam? Nuff said. — A rare photo of the two photographers. Keep in mind that this photo was taken in mid-May. Notice the layers. Spring in Amsterdam? Nuff said.

What could be cooler than black and white tulips? Rachel looks right at home to me!

Here's Matisyahu reminding me to keep my eye on the prize!