Can't sleep for all the excitment

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, or perhaps in the wee hours of the morning, to crashes of thunder and the percussive sound of hail on the windows and roof accompanied by a driving rain. I have always loved a good storm. I prefer them earlier in the day when I can enjoy them more fully, mind you, but even being awakened I just burrow further into bed and let them lull me back to sleep. More recently, however, I find myself postponing enjoyment of the display while I run a mental checklist first: are the rain barrels set? Did we bring in all the toys? Are all the windows shut? And when all things are accounted for I think of what a measurably peaceful thing it is to be able to enjoy the storm from inside our sturdy, protective shelter—what a wonderful thing that invention and hard work have brought people to this—and then I enjoy the storm all the more.

When we woke up this morning the sun was actually shining and the clouds were moving off. The best part about the morning was seeing that the edge garden faired the storm so well. Until we got the more recent plantings in it had suffered storms with massive runoff and erosion. We're on the right track.

We created a volcano felt set today. Then he says to me "next we need to make a Roman gods felt set." Right. At some point the whole "mom can do anything" illusion is going to wear off.

And while we created felt, and later while we read books, we also watched birds. A Baltimore oriole came and sat on our hummingbird feeder today. What a delight! He couldn't eat from it, and he left, but we wedged an orange half in the tree hoping he'd come back, and on a walk a little later we found him hanging out in a puddle on our walking path. We also saw a gray catbird, so that made two new birds today.

But we spent most of our day preparing for an upcoming trip—store trips, meeting with the lovely person who stays with our dogs, cleaning, packing. When on earth did packing become such an ordeal? Clothes, books, toys, electronics...and finally we were done, but it took the little boy twice as long to go to sleep. I think I still get pretty excited about some things, but rarely does anything like that keep me from sleeping anymore. Not even beautiful thunderstorms.

Exciting

Today was full of exciting.

It didn't start that way. We woke up and spent some dreary moments staring out the window at a cold, gray morning, puddles filling every depression in the lawn and garden. We cuddled in the reading chair and read for a while. We both practiced the piano. We straightened some of the house, though not as much as it could use. We almost started lunch, but then Calvin remembered his previous excitement over a middle ages and renaissance experience and decided instead that he wanted to read a little in a book that we'd brought home from the book sale a few weeks ago about King Arthur. That's when exciting started. We read the opening page to King Arthur's Knight Quest, and it was over an hour before we actually got to lunch. The book is a hidden pictures sort, with a lot of rich illustrations depicting the costumes and outfittings of the knights and the story and backdrop of the fantastical world of King Arthur. Because Calvin views every book now as a full life experience we ended up starting work on suit of armor, beginning with the shield. Each page is a new part of the quest, and each page means finding (thus making) a new part of the armor, among a host of other things. There will be a lot more to our quest this week, and that's exciting.

At lunch, to continue his exploration of the middle ages, Calvin wanted to read Cowardly Clyde to me. And he did. I am still blown away by his reading progress, and that's exciting for me.

And exciting was Calvin composing music. He started it this morning after we practiced, playing around with the damper pedal. He continued in the afternoon, then he got some help from his dad in writing it down. Discovery is a very exciting thing.

Then, of course, there's the castle, which is growing and changing slowly, one addition at a time. It's another project that has been and will continue to be ongoing this week. Calvin is teaching me the exciting lesson of coming and going, the ebbing and flowing of creative energy.

And that's exciting.

Rain and sleet and snow, oh my

And oh bummer. It wasn't even so bad when we went out, bright and early, this morning to go to our library's monthly book sale (the one that Calvin and help set up all month long). It was raining, sure, and we wore warm sweaters under our rain coats, and Calvin wore his rain boots of course, but having not checked the weather report I had no idea that by the time we got home from library, book store, and grocery the rain would be ice, and then snow. I think we'll have to shovel tomorrow.

It's Saturday, and we like to surround ourselves with things that give us joy, so we hit up our book sale early (see Calvin reading under one of the sale tables) and followed that up with a stop at our Borders store.

We like Borders. At one time it was a local business, I even went to school with the Borders children, but clearly it is not that store any longer, and maybe it would be better if it was. We like Borders still because they alone carry our favorite coffee (Seattle's Best), because they give me a 25% off educator's discount on any items I use with Calvin, and because they are always joyfully willing to help me find obscure things, even if they have to order them from obscure places (like a full copy of the Parlement of Foules). Maybe they would do those things for us at Barnes and Noble, too (although I highly doubt it on the discount front), and our favorite book shopping is still at used book stores (we always go for used first when we can), but for whatever reason, and maybe it's the nostalgia token, Borders is our book store.

That's why their recent troubles leave us feeling sad. It's also why, when we see such appalling abuse of book shelf space as that pictured below, we feel deeply distressed. Compare the shelf space in the social studies section taken by Justin Bieber to that given to "world history, K-5" and ask yourself how Justin Bieber can really be that important. I know I did. And just to clarify, there were more of those purple books on a display front overhead. This is social studies today? I never did find the book on Egypt that I wanted.

So I guess it's not hard to figure out why Borders is struggling.

Then we came home, just before the sleet and snow started, had lunch, played with Legos, painted things, watched a video on hippos and rhinos, played some guitar, played some piano, had dinner, painted some more things, read some books, and went to bed. Or at least the (not so) little one went to bed.

There are more things I could say here, but I think one long paragraph is enough for a post. My bit on our new guitar, hootenannies, and my dad's longish hair years will have to wait for another day.

Dinner is done

I love crockpot meals. Morning, after all, is when I have the energy to cook, not at five o'clock, or even four. Let's get dinner made before lunch. Even better, let's make dinner before we even get out of our pajamas.

I have a very jolly helper.

And yes, I realize that some days it looks like we never get out of our pajamas. Even on a week day. And yes, I'll admit, it doesn't just look that way, it probably is that way. Life looks pretty good from comfy pajamas, plus it cuts down on laundry. When we go places, though, we get dressed, and most days we go places even if just to the library. Today we needed art supplies, and time to drool over rows of pretty spring textiles. We have a number of projects planned.

We also stopped by the bakery to order our paczkis for next Tuesday, and, yes, the library for some new books. Calvin's piano teacher (not Jon) described music learning as happening in waves, an ebbing and flowing tide, but I think this is not restricted to music learning alone. I think it describes all learning, and maybe even life. Months ago Calvin first started to read, and his reading has been improving slowly but steadily since then, until about two weeks ago when I noticed in the car that he was reading signs like a crazy man. Then I noticed it in the stores, and then at home. It's as though he has broken through another barrier. I'll often find him now, curled up in a corner with a book that we used to read to him, and hear him whispering the words to himself. This is not something we've worked on together, it's something that happened when I wasn't really looking. Then he asked me today to check out a Franklin (the turtle) reader from the library. It was a level two reader and I was worried about frustration, so I asked him to have a look at it with me first. He promptly sat down and read the whole thing to me. We brought home three Franklin readers, all in level two.

I love this. I love his love for reading. I cannot describe how much I love this.

I love this, too, the part of our table now relegated to craft center, making it possible for him to pick up paints and get to work any time he feels like it. He has two new long term painting projects underway and I can't wait to see where he's going with them.

And he read to me while I made biscuits to go with our crockpot dinner.

Yes, I did just say while I made biscuits to go with our crockpot dinner, the dinner that we finished making while still in our pajamas so that we wouldn't have to do any cooking later. Some days there's just enough energy left for things like homemade biscuits.

Sick day

First, the cat's out of the bag. Or box, as it may be. I'm not likely to make it to the computer on Wednesday nights because that's our guilty pleasure night. Wednesday nights we are parked in front of the TV for Criminal Minds, a guilty pleasure for a family that otherwise gives wide berth to the TV in the corner.

But even all that sitting didn't keep me from waking up sick this morning, fighting fire in my throat and aches in my head. I managed breakfast, then I managed piano practice—Since Calvin finished the second book this week we've been playing a review game, rolling dice and using the hundreds chart to add them up to determine which page to play next.

After piano I managed a shower and a trip to the library for book sorting and then story time. After that I managed lunch, but as soon as the lunch dishes were closed inside the washer I retreated to bed. Earlier, as I watched Jon leave for work, nursing my aches from the comforts of my favorite chair, I sat in dread of the day. Moms don't get sick days, after all, especially homeschooling moms. And a year ago it probably wouldn't have gone so well, but now I have a very sweet, very empathetic, four year old boy, so after lunch we collected all the books and art materials we could carry and set up camp on my bed where we proceded to spend the entire afternoon. He read to me, I read to him, we drew pictures, we talked about strange things, imaginary things, we cuddled.

Did you know that they use ferries to take loaded trains across the Great Lakes? That's thanks to the awesome Great Lakes Great Ships book we got at the library sale last weekend.

This was the best sick day ever.