Is it really Wednesday already?

I'm having some trouble keeping up. We had the book sale on Saturday, and a spring party for fourteen at our house on Sunday. Monday I have no excuses, but Tuesday we played with friends all morning and took the dogs to the vet in the afternoon. So I haven't been typing, but we have been busy. Very busy.

Calvin passed his beginner swimming class a couple of weeks ago and moved up to the gliders class, which means that he is now swimming multiple laps of the entire width of pool during every class. He's doing great, and he now comes home very tired.

Calvin is reading The Cricket in Times Square. He's about half way through and really enjoying it. So far we've made a cricket, assembled a cricket cage, and gone out for a Chinese lunch.

Our mummy project is moving forward steadily, one step at a time. We're making mummy cases with mummies to go inside, and we should be done by the end of the week, depending on how many coats of decorative paint we add.

And as of today we're caught up on laundry, the birds are fed, and the Legos have once again taken over the front room.

Iris would like her floor back.

Spring was meant to be rainy

I woke up this morning and stretched lazily under warm blankets, enjoying the bright morning light streaming in through the south facing window in our bedroom. Seconds later, the morning still bright, and a heavy rain was pouring down. As much as I enjoyed 80 degree sunny days, this is the spring I know and have missed. Tulips dripping in a cold but nourishing rain, tree buds breaking out, clouds floating overhead, only lightly masking the brightness of the sky.

Lots of reading today, and meandering through ancient Egypt. A little math, a little map play. Shelving books at the library. Walking the dogs, creating the Book of the Dead.

Calvin is fascinated by this piece of history. He has made a Book of the Dead before, the last time we explored Ancient Egypt, but he wanted to do it again now that he has "more drawing experience."

So how about another blast from the past? From March 2011:

Wednesday and Thursday

Time is just flying.

Or really it's just that spring came kind of early, so it feels later in the year than it really is. In fact, I've already mowed our lawn twice, and isn't that something we usually reserve for April?

There have been ups and downs this month, and the bright weather has helped to clear the bad air. High winds and a couple of heavy rains have done a lot to clear the tornado debris from the trees, and the warm weather has made it easy to get out with Iris and Ollie and ease the pain of losing Moose. Colorful, happy flowers always help, too.

It's been chillier lately, though, and while I don't really have the right to be disappointed because this is more like true March weather, I suddenly find fifty degrees to be a bit on the cool side. Either way, spring is here.

We're in Egypt these days. Calvin loves Egypt. We spent a couple of weeks exploring it last winter, and I'm surprised by how much he seems to remember now. I think Magic Tree House has a lot to do with it (Mummies in the Morning, plus the accompanying research guide, by Mary Pope Osborne). We are visiting ancient Egypt now as part of a tour through the ancient civilizations, which we're loving. Calvin discovered a craft book in the sale room this week, all the suggestions in which he is determined to try (Egyptian Crafts from the Past, by Gillian Chapman), and we've watched Engineering an Empire (History Channel, 2006), three times thus far—it's a great overview of the architecture from each of the three kingdoms. I suspect there will be many crafts to photograph in the coming days, but we have to go shopping for a few oddball supplies first.

Meanwhile, we're smelling the flowers, puzzling through the continents (Geo Puzzles Europe and the Middle East), filling in our ancient civilizations timeline (I've failed to photograph it thus far, but I'll get on it tomorrow), graphing, mathing, and exploring the earth that is coming alive all around us. Every day is full of discovery, more so now I think than any other time of the year.