I was about to write this post, and then realized that I hadn’t told Mr. December yet; and a blog post is NOT the way for him to find out. Wait right here—I’ll be back in a moment.
He has now been told: we’re taking the instruments to Israel. Guitar, flute, viola. Possibly a roll-up keyboard.
Mr. December’s reaction just now was a very put-upon, “Really?” to which K loudly expounded on the difficulty of not being able to practice consistently. Yes, you read that correctly. My kid was complaining about not practicing her instrument enough. Will wonders never cease?
Long story short, Mr. December got outvoted. As I pointed out to him, if he wants to actually try worldschooling with slow travel (living in one place) for extended periods of time, he’ll have to accept that the musical instruments come with us.
We brought R’s guitar to Costa Rica and Galapagos with us, and were allowed to bring it into the cabin and put it in the overhead bin. K’s viola won’t take up much more space than that—although come to think of it, I should go measure my viola case (it’s nicer than K’s and probably better padded, too.) E’s flute is obviously no problem—she’s brought it on all our trips. And N…
Look, it kind of sucks to be a pianist sometimes. You have to rely on an instrument being provided for you, and then it might not even be well-tuned. I made an executive decision to try one of those roll-up keyboards to see if it might suffice for N’s piano practice while we’re away. I’m not expecting it to be amazing or just like a piano; I simply want him to be able to practice the notes and fingerings when we’re gone for long stretches of time.
Have I even begun packing yet? No. But our flight is still 72 hours away. Plenty of time, right?