LivinginBrno

I'm on blogger platform for a fairly short amount of time, under one year. Today will share with you a few details about who is reading my blog. I am honoured to see my audience comes from various countries like: 1. Czechia 2. Russia 3. Romania 4. United States 5. United Kingdom 6. Ukraine 7. India 8. Austria 9. Germany 10. France What about the gender of my audience? It seems, according to statistics, that majority are male readers. This was a little shocking for me, I was really expecting more women/mother readers, but is only at the beginning, for sure the balance will soon take its course. Is only a 6 months old blog, wait till it reaches 'toddler' age:) Most read topics in this blog are about: - English speaking doctors' recommendations - paperwork and tips for social services/parental support - advice for finding rent - my birth experience and help for state kindergarten enrolment Thank you for being here, my dear readers, motivators and exp...

This post is not about us and our lovely day today at the Zoo. This post is not about how happy we were today and felt like the luckiest parents in the world. This post is not about recording our second boy's first visit ever to the Zoo. This post is not about how my husband felt like a child during the train trip at the wonderful Zoo and I was again falling in love with him, for the billionth time. This post is not about how our sweet 5 year old boy showed courage and lots of patience during some obstacle game, meant for little older kids. This post is for the curly haired 5 year old boy in the swing. I could see you looking at your parents with your big, clean, curious eyes, who were sitting on a bench just 5 steps away from you. I could hear you asking them to look at you and listen to you. I could hear your silence. I wondered how a 5 year old sits so calm in a swing, for a fair amount of time. I again heard your silence yelling at your parents. I could see your sad...

Being close to our kids during their early childhood has always been a priority, but due to limited contractual restraints from work, back in 2014 I had to return to work fulltime with our son since he was 7 months old. While that helped us a lot financially and triggered the rapid healing of my postpartum depression, I admit those were the most difficult 2 years in our lives. I had a possibility to work a lot home office, husband the same and my tasks were always fulfilled daily, even if they were during 18.00-23.00 hours or at 08.00-15,30, they had to be covered, there was some sort of flexibility that allowed me to be there present at home and also perform work. Thanks to helping for kids' grandparents, who were basically living with us we managed to keep our kid at home and also work fulltime. However it was demanding because we had to be there for him, I had to also cook and clean, do the usual mommy stuff and also work fulltime. As I had some possibility to work at home offic...

The optional vaccinations in Czech Republic are being covered by parents' own funds and while they can get quite expensive, there is still a small amount refunded back to parents for certain vaccinations, yearly in fixed sums, like maximum 500 czk/vaccinated child. Is called the prevention fund and these discounts are not fixed or guaranteed every year, but still, we managed to withdraw it for every child at the right time. 500 czk is not a fortune and it will not make you rich but is better than nothing. In my  last year tutorial  I managed to gather all links and it helps every time I go for that vaccination, for each child. Now that we expect our 3rd child, I was thinking it will for sure help me to have all the steps written here on the blog, so I am just keeping them for future reference hoping it will maybe help other parents. Steps how to request a refund of vaccination from the VZP prevention fund: 1. Register your email here as a member of the club. This...

As you probably know, we already applied for the state kindergarten and on 13th May, the school director already gave me an answer via email that our son got accepted, earning enough points and they called me to the office to pick up the admission confirmation paper. Next step is that we must bring a filled in paper from a pediatrician at the kindergarten, somewhere in June 2019. We are truly happy and grateful that he got accepted, as you can see in  this vlog . Here  you can listen to the enrollment process as experienced by us this year or read it  here . Thank you for reading.

Is not a secret that the Czech Postal Services are working great but for newly arrived expats it might be something easily disregarded. Will be starting a weekly series with short step by steps guides on how to ask some paperwork via email from various Czech based offices. I am doing it first for me, to have these details in future, in case someone asks me or I might just forget and is handy to have it here. If you are on a maternity leave and the term for your Parental Leave start is close, you might need a paper from MSSZ office which states you are on a maternal leave.  If you are Czech native speaker, this guide is not for you and you might even find it funny, this guide is just for new expat moms of Brno - sorry to say it:  exhausted moms, like me who really don't wish to make that trip to Gajdosova street and wait in line to take the paper. First, you can call them but I haven't try that as I cannot speak Czech on that level or any level... if it matters. ...

Finding a free place to a state Czech kindergarten is quite difficult , not only for us as expats but for the Czech people as well. I do trust there is no difference between czech and non-czech kids in this country, the people of Brno and Czech Republic in general, really respect and put children on the first place. I try to think and trust that we are not competing against czech families because I have seen how difficult is for them, as well. Now, that we know we have equal chances, how do we enroll our kid to the state kindergarten. Except for few broken pieces of information available on hidden Facebook groups there is little to almost no information available for the non-czech speaking people.  Maybe you work fulltime and don't have time to read all FB group discussions, that information stays buried there as opposed to having it on a forum or blog. It's odd to me that no other expat parents made such information available to help the rest of us, there are many out...