the Algarve

Parenthood these days feels like an escort mission, mostly, with a few side quests along the way. While the boys each tend to choose much of their own activities now, it still seems like our job to stretch their sense of the world. They found passports in their stockings at Christmas, and we headed to Portugal just before the new year. We spent the first several days of the trip in a village near the southeast border, sleeping in what had been a 16th century convent. We chose this area for the predictably sunny January weather, and with hopes to explore the Ria Formosa, a series of barrier islands with marshes, lagoons, sandbars and tide pools. A haven for migratory birds, we saw a flock of flamingos from our breakfast chairs one morning!

The old town of Tavira felt sleepy in the winter as we wandered cobbled streets admiring Moorish remnants and brilliant tile facades, ornate churches and charming plazas. We were surprised, and thrilled, to discover an impressive fireworks show right outside our front door on New Year's Eve! We walked to the Mercado for local figs and mangos and fresh pastries, and ventured to nearby towns like Olhao to explore the Ria Formosa Natural Park where we observed cork oak and prickly pear, fiddler crabs and various bivalves, an old tide mill and ancient Roman salt tank ruins. And from Santa Luzia we rode a tuna train to the anchor cemetery at Praia do Barril, where the boys dug holes and built structures with reeds and collected plastic barrels to be recycled. 

Decembros

Several weeks ago Hank emerged from his bedroom dressed entirely in green, from head to toe. I knew immediately that his intent was to camouflage at the nursery, his favorite part of choosing a tree not the actual choosing, but the hide and seek game with his brothers.

Aside from his favorite hoodie, the other thing Tolliver seems to have had on alllll season is a rather old red hat, the kind you picture the narrator of Night Before Christmas in next to Ma with her kerchief. He tends to have something in his hands too, usually a football, sometimes a finger skate board, often a jar of peanut butter.

Meanwhile Tucker wears a near perma-smile (with the occasional and very normal teenaged smirk). His fingers find every nearby piano - at the neighbors' and at his grandparents', improvisational Jingle Bells as regular background noise. 

There are themes in all these pictures, books and rest, Legos and mess, music and paper crafts and pageant costumes and cousins, things that fly and so much time with family, so much love...

so much Decembering!

all the clapping

At some point fairly recently the younger boys began clapping for themselves during piano practice - usually just a couple quick whacks before they're on to the next song. I'm not entirely sure how it started, but I am HERE FOR IT. I wrote a guest essay last summer about the ways I used to encourage my fifth grade students to celebrate. At some point a simple conversation with a few ten year olds resulted in regular Broadway-esque applause in our classroom. I mean, who doesn't love a standing ovation, and why not give one to yourself?

While the boys won't have a formal piano recital until late spring, our neighbor has requested the gift of holiday music at her hors d'oeuvre party later this month, so the house has been full of Christmas-y practice. The calendar has been full too, with recent band and choir and orchestra concerts, plus a field trip to OSU's Celebration of Music. And I am here for all.of.it.