Spring piano recital

It feels like I haven't had much to say lately. Mostly it's because of utter exhaustion—our days have been very full, what with a birthday and all—so that at the end of the day my mind is fried and I'm not thinking in terms of journal entries or blog posts. I'm lucky if I can spell out our names and get the date right. And the thing about busy days is that they produce no less laundry and require no fewer meals.

Last week was the birthday, Saturday was the party, and Sunday was the spring/summer piano recital for Jon's students, Calvin included. The recital went well. It is a real joy to see how much Calvin has grown at the piano over the past year. Just a year ago he was picking out quarter notes with one finger. I've felt torn in the past about both the formal study of piano and the recitals, something I think I've mentioned before, but I hesitate only because I don't want piano (or any learning for that matter) to become so goal oriented that the enjoyment of the process or the ability to self fulfill gets lost. This has not been an issue in our experience thus far, though, and I am not going to look for trouble where none is to be found. Calvin really enjoys the challenge of the piano. He needs little encouragement to practice every day, and, following his regular pattern, does most of his practicing entirely on his own. And the results really are enjoyable for all of us, especially since the process is equally so.

Cutting with scissors

Sometimes you just have to read a book and you don't even have time to actually get all the way into the house before you do so. Good thing I cleaned the floors recently.

Calvin is still on his Nate the Great kick. It's all you can do right now to get him to put down a book and participate in something lively in body as well as in mind. I'm not really bothered by this. In fact, I'm a little in love with his love for reading. That being said, with days of rain in the upcoming forecast I thought it prudent to take in some of the sunshine that was peeking through today's cloudcover, so I promised him dirt followed by a bath, and that did the trick. So we spent all afternoon cleaning up the the garden along the side of the garage. Which is the smallest garden space we have. There is plenty left to do.

We counted over fifty worms as we worked, gently depositing each one back under a pile of dirt. "Hidden from bird view" as Calvin put it. We swept out the old and the dead and broke up the dirt, which is actually clay, for the benefit of the living. I think it's funny that just yesterday I was laughing with Jon about how Calvin understands many bizarre things, like medieval feudal systems or number concepts up through the thousands, but has never practiced things, like cutting in a straight line, which is on a number of preschool "achievement tests" (which are things I pay little to no attention to), and then today he used my gardening sheers to gently and precisely trim back plant parts. With supervision, of course, but actually without help. I've always heard/read/been told/adopted as belief that he would learn (or just know) things as they came up. There was no need to push for skill procurement just for skill procurement. I guess here is my proof.

And to show off our work, some before and after shots:

Deja vu all over again

They promised us sixty degrees today. Sixty! And it may actually have been a balmy sixty when I went to the library just before eleven this morning, but it was a nippy fifty when we went out to the store just two hours later, and much chillier low forties by dinner. Bah. Calvin had wanted to walk in the field today, and I think we would have done it if it hadn't been damp on top of cold. That phrase gives me a strong and unfortunate feeling of deja vu. He decided, as we came home from the store, that he'd rather stay in and play games. We played Mammoth Hunt, with help from Cookie and Torso Boy, and we also tried our hands at Connect Four.

Piano, Oz, chopping carrots for dinner (soup, which actually turned out to compliment the weather nicely), taking turns reading to each other, quiet, individual play and reading—cold, wet days with tempestuous winds are good for something. And with his bosses out of town, Jon worked from home today. Since we have commandeered the office when he works from home he usually does so at the kitchen table, making him central to all of our goings on. We do a pretty good job of ignoring his existence while he's working, but I left Calvin to draw quietly across from him when I went to the library and he spent the entire hour I was gone doing just that. When I came home he presented me with a cornucopia of castle drawings. I don't have pictures of them yet, but they are coming.

After dinner tonight, while we still sat at the table, I asked Calvin to read to us. He skipped off to select his own book from the other room and came back with the Giving Tree and read it to us, fluently and with feeling, while we reclined in our dining chairs. Then we went on with the rest of the evening. The surprise of hearing him read like that is beginning to wear off. I could get used to this autodidactic nature of his.

The forgetting room, the growing room

I walked into our middle room the other day, the one we've been using as an "office" since we moved in. It would make a better "learning room" than "office," I thought. After all, we put our last desktop computer to bed a few years ago so other than the cable modem and Airport (and an old drive used to store music and movies we access from the TV only) there's no need for a traditional office in our home. That's why our office had really become more of a storage area over the years, storing mostly the "we're-too-lazy-to-file-these" piles of paper as well as our "rarely-used-now-that-we've-gone-paperless" office supplies. It had become the kind of room that you entered only to drop off more forgettable items, or to forage in cases of missing items unfound in any other crannies of the house. The forgetting room.

Really I had forgotten what a great space it was: big window, walk-in closet, lots of wall space for maps and artwork. Rather than a forgotten office it needed to be a light-filled, people filled, art and book filled space. So Saturday morning we started by rescuing the closet from the twin mattress set that had been inhabiting it since we brought home the bunk-beds from my parents' house two years ago when we were ready for only one of them. Calvin isn't old enough to sleep on the top bunk yet, but he is old enough to have it set up, so we started the office reclamation project by growing Calvin's room. Vertically. He's thrilled.

The rest of the weekend went to shredding, recycling, filing, dragging furniture, storing or giving away obsolete stuff, and moving in more relevant materials. It took two full days, but Monday morning Calvin and I sat our light-filled room and looked at the huge map on the wall, drew pictures at our desks and hung them up, and sat on the floor to play games, enjoying the open space. As an additional plus I got to move a good portion of our art and craft items out of our guest room, leaving more space in there for, not guests, but sewing.

Welcome to our new learning office.

Empty chrysalis syndrome

Our black swallowtails finally emerged and left. Having read that they remained as chryslids for only 8-10 days we had come to believe that they were planning to winter over with us, since they had gone into that state while we were still up at Walloon, 14, 15, and 18 days ago. We were surprised and excited, then, to find one of hte shells empty on Sunday afternoon. Having missed the take off of Larry, our first caterpillar turned black swallowtail, we were determined to keep a closer eye on Curly Parsley and Moe so as not to miss the great show. to give them more room we had tied their smaller sticks to longer ones and propped them in an open (never used) bird feeder on our deck table.

This morning we were finally rewarded. Right after eclosing the butterfly has a body distended with fluid and wings folded tightly against the body. They then pump the fluid out of their abdomen and into the veins of their wings to spread them open. These two eclosed probably 4-5 minutes apart, although we missed Moe (on the right) emerging. This picture was taken at 8:48am.

Just four minutes later at 8:52 Curley Parsley (on the left) has significantly altered his appearance. The chrysalis is still there on the stick. Notice that it is no longer dark in color now that the black butterfly is out.

A closer look at Moe so you can see the veins running through her wings. Curly Parsley and Moe were both females, a specific that can be determined by the spot formation on their wings—big yellow spots on the male, smaller yellow spots on the female.

Here is Moe stretching out her proboscis, making sure she's ready to get nectar from the plants she finds.

Stretching and sunning. This was right before Moe took off. Curly Parsley (on the right here) wasn't that far behind time wise, but she stuck around for another 30 minutes.

This is pobably best chance we've ever had, and probably will ever have, to take such a close look at a butterfly.

And just two final shots of Curly Parsley before she took off to look for nectar plants and a mate. Good luck Curly.

Awesome.