So...what does she do all day?!

It's a fair question: with all 3 kids in school, no lunches to pack, just a small, rented apartment to clean with no home improvements to execute or yard to maintain, a husband who is very hands on with the kids and house chores (and only working part-time), and not working--what DO I do all day?

I did originally think I'd be swimming in spare time: I came with a list of books to read, years of online scrapbooks to catch up on, knitting gear to learn from my son, a few Netflix series in mind to watch, aspirations to join a tennis club, ideas for blogging, the hope for occasional naps and yes, an intention to be more present and have quality time with my kids.

Enter the switch in school schedules, with Gabi in school from 8am-1pm, Jonty from 1pm-7pm, and Catarina from 9am-4pm...WTF?!  But you know what?  The schedule is working for me!

• With all the comings and goings to school, I am not bored.
• Multiple walks each day in the glorious sunshine is good for my health.
• The route is along the beach and up quaint, cobblestoned village roads speckled with art and gardens bedazzled in flowers.
• I interact with people along the way. The Portuguese are friendly and approachable--locals smile and say "Bom dia" or "Boa Tarde".  Lovely.
• My daily coffees (80 cents for a frothed cappuccino!) and fresh pastries at cafes are delicious, and wine with my hubby every evening provides a zen moment together.
• Mark is working 5 days a week, but fewer hours a day.  So we have slower mornings and earlier evenings as a family.
• I do not have to rush, and that my friends, is a gift, all on its own. The kids and I sometimes take 30 minutes to walk home from school, just taking it all in!

I am managing to get to my TO-DO list (minus the tennis and knitting), albeit in 1 hour chunks instead of 6 hour chunks.  And yes, I still have to cook and clean and parent. Here is a look at my day, yesterday:

7:15am - wake up
8am - walk Gabi to school (the school & nursery school is a 10 minute walk from home); stop by the market for veggies, fruit, fresh bread, and fish for supper
8:45am - arrive back at home, have a coffee with Mark on the balcony, see Catarina off (Mark walks her to school), hang with Jonty reading, playing and doing homework, hang a load of laundry (no dryer here--the sun is reliable all year long!)
10:45am - walk 15min to the High School with Jonty for his 1 hour badminton practice (I read while he trains)
noon - walk Jonty to school for his lunch and school day
12:15pm - read on the beach waiting to walk back home with Mark after his swim across the bay
12:45pm - lunch with Mark
1:30pm - go to pick up Gabi between school and her afternoon music and gym class (we head to the beach to play cards for an hour)
2:45pm - drop off Gabi at school, meet a new friend for coffee
4:15pm - pick up Catarina at her school, head to the library to play and get books
5:15pm - pick up Gabi from school and the 3 of us head home and play
6:30pm - make/eat supper; Mark heads out to pick up Jonty and they go straight to hockey practice
8pm - girls' bedtime
9:30pm - Jonty&mom's bedtime!

Here is what our walk to the school looks like:

Right outside our apartment - I say, on cue: "Another gorgeous day!"

Chasing the Sea gulls

Ok, sometimes we fuel up with Pastries and Coffee enroute...

Watching the Surfers

Gabi Walks the "Beam" without fail

Just another historic building...

Pondering: What to Buy with my Allowance?

Think twice about having a bust made of you...so much bird poop!

Mommy's Favorite Flowers

#thefunpartisgettingthere

Sorting out the school thing...

Five+ inquiries to the support staff to know the protocol for: sick days, missed school lunches, lost and found, ordering school shirts, getting a ball off the roof; four trips to the book store one town over to get the right textbooks and then workbooks (two different things..); three meetings with the teachers to understand nuances; two kids who are loving school, and one mom having fun figuring it all out!

The back of the school yard

The front of the school

Jonty's thoughts on school here:

Discipline:"There is no drama or kids being loud and misbehaving in class.  It is so quiet,  it's a lot easier to learn.".  The teacher is strict!  On day 1 she said there would be no warnings for misbehaviour: one strike, and your dad or mom, or grandparent would have to come and speak to her at the end of the school day.  This caused a ripple of fear through the class--a threat that does not seem to carry the same weight in Canada! Last week, some kids in Jonty's class entered the classroom giggling.  They had to leave and try again, as the classroom is a quiet space for learning. Still not successful, extra homework.
Jonty is a kid who responds well to structure and consistent rules--strict works for him!

Respect: Here there is a notable level of respect for teachers.  Students and parents revere them.  They are addressed by: Senhora Professora (Mrs. Teacher). Students often greet their teacher with a kiss on each cheek (traditional Portuguese greeting, and a sign of respect to your elders). Jonty does not...yet. ;)

Homework: Jonty gets about 30 minutes of homework everyday, Gabi about 15 minutes twice a week. Jonty has never really had homework before. "I don't love it mommy, but I have to do it".  He does not want trouble with his teacher, so gets it done!

Math is fun, no matter the language

My observations on school:

Roles & Responsibilities:  
Teachers, teach!
Support staff (5 lovely women who know all the kids by name) wear bright pink tunics and are responsible for staffing the locked gate during arrivals and departures, getting the kids to lunch and class, supervising at recess, helping students/teachers with the school day, cleaning the school, calling parents if a snack is missing/child is sick/issue that needs their attention, and probably many other things I don't realize.
There is no school secretary or office--administration happens at the board office.
Parents ensure kids arrive on time, with a snack, and do their homework.  They enter the school only if they have a meeting with a teacher; there are no opportunities to volunteer (maybe a union thing? adequately funded staffing? most parents work?).

The Building: At this small school, in the heart of downtown in this small fishing village: Grades 1&2 go to school in the morning and Grades 3&4 in the afternoon because there are only 8 classrooms, and there are 14 classes. The kids only leave textbooks and binders on shelves in the classroom--nothing is left in their desks.  The school and yard are surrounded by 15 foot high metal fencing.  There is no gymnasium or auditorium--with such great climate, gym is outside on the basketball court!  There is the public library next door where assemblies can take place.

Gabi's Gym Class - ends at 5:15pm twice a week!

Dense Urban Living: There are no school buses. Being that almost everyone lives in an apartment here, I would guess that the ~300 kids live within a kilometre of the school. This builds community--we see kids from school out and about all the time!  I love that a few kids get picked up on motorcycles for the steep trek back up the hill.

Sick Days:  If a child is sick for more than 3 days, their absence requires a doctor's note. To report an absence, the parent fills in a little card and sends it into the school the next time the child goes. There is no office to call!

Reading in Portuguese, Writing in Cursive, Reading Cursive in Portuguese!

Curriculum: In grade 1, Gabi is working on 28 main words (writing, reading and context). They do not print here--she is learning cursive!  She has been working hard on this, especially considering she is registered as: Gabriela Elizabeth Magalhaes McCann--which she has to write out multiple times a day! There is no playtime aside from recess (she misses Ontario's Kindergarten play-based learning.).  She noted: "We sit in our desks all day mommy, we don't get up and move around. I miss carpet time."

For Jonty, from what I can tell, he arrived slightly ahead in math, and the rest seems similar.  Thank goodness he did French Immersion before coming.  Day 1 homework was determining the masculine and feminine form of the Portuguese words. Fortunately, the concept was not foreign to him, otherwise it could have gone something like this: "But that is so stupid mom, how can the sun be a boy and the moon be a girl? It makes no sense. I'm not doing this."

Learning Support: Both kids are getting ~1.5 hours of extra Portuguese language support from the librarian.  For Gabi, its included in her school day, for Jonty, he goes in early twice a week. We are impressed!
To date in their academics, my kids have not needed extra help. When Jonty first learned he was going to get support, he was hesitant: "But mom, I feel stupid. I don't like being the kid who needs extra help." He came around quickly; what a great way for my kids to experience and build tolerance in someone else's shoes! Like classmates back home who get support, they are not dumb--it's just helpful to learn another way.

Their Portuguese is coming!
#força

Chameleons...all 3 of them!

We are so proud of these kids

I'll tell you, those first two weeks of school and life were hard, emotional, and tiring. I was ready to go home.

Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement--it kept me going long enough to ride out the tidal wave. We have now been in Sesimbra a month: OMG, whew, and YAY, things are so good!

The factor responsible for the 180 turn-around has been our kids' incredible adjustment to everything: school, language, apartment-living, schedule, food...Kids are crazy good at adapting. 

Jonty:
In all our planning, we figured Jonty was the biggest liability: academically and socially.  Being the oldest and thrown into Portuguese school at a grade 4 level (a big year here as its the last year of primary, with lots of pressure to get ready for a big move to middle school), we were counting on his "go with the flow" take on life (he gets it from Mark) and his remarkable ability to easily make friends.  He blew our expectations out of the water.  He likes school--he goes happily (I tell you, those delicious hot lunches get him out the door so quickly), and is always smiling at pick-up.  Whether at school, before/after school, or even around town on the weekend, kids are always coming up and saying "Ola Tiago" (his Portuguese name)--he's like a celebrity!  He just grins and gives a little wave--he is still shy speaking Portuguese, but he understands so much now.  He always has kids to play with at recess and the teacher has called me in to tell me how impressed she is with his progress.
And mommy breathes a huge sigh of relief.

Gabi:
We had no qualms about Gabi: she was entering in at ground 0 (kindergarten is not mandatory and kids often do this year at pre-school). Plus, kids are so sweet at this age! She is a social kid and a teacher pleaser, loves school, and has an inner confidence that gets her through tough spots. The first week of school she was amazing and gung-ho, skipping out the door early in the morning and walking happily through the school gate. Week 2 surprised us: she was clingy at drop off, and there were tears, which is not her. We quickly realized that between her lunch and her afternoon classes of music and gym, there was an hour break, and most kids went home.  Easy solution: I go and meet her for that hour now and we hang out--go for a snack, read at the library next door, play cards...
And our happy, skippy girl is back!

Catarina:
We didn't give much thought to Catarina's adaptation: poor third child!  Back in Canada, she was at an amazing home daycare--5 other children, in a calm household, with a routine she knew for 2 years, and lots of access to nature.  She is now in a centre, in a room with ~20 kids, 3-5 years old, a small paved outside space, and group meals with 60 kids in one eating area! On the first day, when I asked her about lunch, she just said: "it hurt my ears." That hurt my heart. So, no surprise that every day for 3 weeks involved tears, desperate clasping of our necks at drop off, constantly asking if I would pick her up, a fear of bedtime because of what the next day would bring, and even waking in the night crying that she did not want to go to school. Hello mommy-guilt: here I was, not working...But, go girl--this week she has not cried once, and heads out happily enough, and comes home saying "I had a wonderful day. I didn't cry.".
Thrown in the deep end, and she keeps swimming.

#proudmamma #kidsarestrong #we'regonnamakeit

Why Portugal? Why Now?

We've been asked a few times now:

Why Portugal?  That's easy: we have family and roots, the climate is amazing, we can live on the ocean (a longtime dream of ours), the country is safe, and the food is delicious.

Why now?  I guess my best answer is...why not?!

My great grandfather used to say there were 3 phases in life:

• when you're young you have health and time, but not much money;
• in the middle years, you have health and money, but not much time;
• when you're retired, you have time and money, but not always health.

My take-away has always been: if life gifts me a time when the 3 intersect, do something memorable! Fortunately, my husband is of the same mind, and so here we are. 

We know we were lucky: the opportunity presented itself in both of our professional careers. We had time to plan for this and it was financially feasible: added bonus. Our kids were at a good age to pull them away for a year: young enough to adapt to school in Portuguese with no/few social detriments, old enough to do some exciting things. And with Mark and I hovering around the 40 year mark...well, a great way to prevent a mid-life crisis. :)

Who's coming to visit?!

Secluded Beach - hike in only

Off to the Market to buy fresh fish for lunch

Super Dad

View of our town from the castle on the hill

Clash of the Cars

Our family of five has gone from an 8-seater mini van in Canada, to a 2 door hatchback in Portugal.

Our Portuguese Pony

Our Canadian Stallion

PROs:

• FUEL EFFICIENCY: with gas prices at ~$2.50/L here versus $1.25/L in Canada, it's nice to be in a fuel efficient car with a small tank. 
• PARKING: here you park wherever you find space: half up on a curb, behind other parked cars with your hazard lights on, in an opening Canadians would leave as a courtesy space around their car. A small car is key.



Road vs Sidewalk: which is which?

• ABILITY TO GET AROUND: especially in the heart of downtowns, the cobblestone laneways were designed for people and carts/horses/ox, not cars. A small car allows us to get around...ultimately the point of having a vehicle! 
• CONVENIENCE: my uncle is lending us his vehicle for our stay here: obrigada tio!

Fun fact: For the first few days our kids were in constant danger of being run over because they could not tell when/where the cobblestone laneways were for pedestrians or cars!

A Typical Delivery Vehicle -- fits anywhere!

CONs:

• Now our kids' shoulders touch when they're in the car. Need I say more? 
• There are only 2 window seats for 3 kids. This requires CONSTANT mediation.

However, as we can walk to school, library, groceries, activities, beach, restaurants, pharmacy, post-office etc, we only incur car drama on weekends when we go sightseeing and traveling. 

And no, we will not be trading in our mini-van when we get back.

SO close together...