Educating kids on the road less travelled from Mike

Hola amigos.

Thanks for the replies from many of you regarding our trip.

Many of you have mentioned what a great gift it is to the boys. Others have extended your understanding, indeed sympathy!, for us being with them 24 ...7, and for so many weeks!

Over the last little while, I´ve realized that you are of course both correct. The last 5 weeks of travel have included some of the best moments of parenting that I have ever experienced, as well as some of the most difficult too.

The best moments have often been some of the dinners we have had together...we have had one or two! Sometimes, there have been magical moments when the boys have been totally engaged in our discussions. These talks have been a little like the famous teachable moments of a teacher, those times when we have the students´ complete attention, and interest. The dinner talks with Dylan and Justin at these times have been so sincredible partly because their level of interest has been so vivid, so complete, so different than usual! It has been so satisfying for Gail and I because we feel ...probably incorrectly..at these times that we have more influence in their lives than usual.

I suspect that these moments have presented themselves because the boys have been outside of their normal level of comfort, and of routine, and that the new environments of Peru and Ecuador have stimulated them to think about new questions, and to wonder a little more. Even if I´m wrong about the parental influence, it has been a pleasant change from our habitual norms of our normal patterns of communication with each other!

And yes, there are been moments sharing busses, and one room quadruple hotel rooms, and being with each other so often, where we lose it with each other, and things break down, almost totally. But the positive moments of the trip far outweigh the infighting, and it is all good.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. I´ll ask Gail to send some hard details and photos on our river rafting trip today near Cuzco!

Hope you are well, and have survived the snow.

Best wishes Mike