spring

With spring comes rebirth, renewal, a fresh start. We could some of that right now. Eighty degrees makes this an unusual spring, and all the sun and bright blue sky makes it almost possible to forget the losses and vulnerability that have shadowed the past week.

So we begin again. We spent three days helping with tornado cleanup, and another helping at the donations center. The weather has helped immensely. There's been no rain since the storm last week, and a gentle breeze has started to dry things out a bit, and given people a chance to sort things out. Calvin has taken both the tornado and the loss of Moose in the kind of stride that only youth can exhibit. It has encouraged me to put away my own sorrow and move forward.

We've had our windows open, and we're exploring like we always do. Math, science, art, piano, history, and whatever comes our way. We've worn out our welcome in Mesopotamia, so Calvin drew a few pictures and closed the case today before we watched a video, (Egypt: Engineering an Empire) to start us off in Egypt. I suspect we'll spend a lot of time there. I have a few things to catch up on blog wise—some art to share, some book reviews, and another list or two of learning tools—and I'll get to them just as soon as I remember how to breath properly.

Sunday in pictures

Art by Jon

She's getting chalk on her butt...

Why yes, yes that is grilled dinner on the back deck in early March. Ahhhh.

still awake

Calvin had to stay up late on Sunday night so he could have a sleep deprivation study done on Monday morning. When I say late I mean that we didn't go to bed—any of us—until almost 1am, and when I say sleep deprivation I mean that we all got up four hours later. We probably should have done it in shifts (Jon and I), but there's something about having company to make those moments less exhausting that kept us both hanging on.

The rough thing about staying up late—really late—with a five year old isn't so much the being tired and the longing for your pillow, it's the having to entertain for five hours more than usual on top of being tired. We stretched the time with books, then Legos, and then popped popcorn and watched The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. He was pretty bleary eyed when we finally tucked him into bed, and when I woke him up four hours later, he said "oh, is it morning already?" and I knew exactly what he meant.

After getting up at 5am we got home from the test at 9:30 and it felt like lunch time. We ate a second breakfast (how often does that get to happen?), we both practiced the piano, and then we relaxed with books for a while before putting on another Legacy video (this is where Netflix is really quite handy).

Then at lunch time it felt like dinner time. I think we were both beyond naps so we took Iris out for a walk to liven things up a bit. Back at home we changed into warm, comfy clothes, steeped tea, and planted ourselves in the sunshine on the den floor with some history books and art supplies per Calvin's request.  We spent some time with a new book, Archaeology for Kids, but mainly we just drew and colored.

Then at dinner time it felt like bed time, and after a day like that it really was, so we ate, we read, and we fell into bed.

Did I mention that he spent the whole day dressed as Pooh?

This is the reason I have never been sorry that I gave in and bought the Pooh costume way back when.

And this is the reason the window seat is always covered.

And this is the reason I am happy with what I do.

Life gets in the way

I haven't done a good job of keeping up here lately. The holidays always slow things down for me and we've had a number of things going on here that have kept me from getting back into the true swing of things. I still find that laundry is piling up, dinners are haphazard, and most of our days have been rather willy-nilly. I'm even forgetting to take pictures at all some days.

Still, life continues. Calvin has started theater class in Fridays through our homeschooling group (HAA) and was given a speaking part in they play. He has continued swimming lessons on Wednesdays and is really enjoying them. His current "thing" is still reading (almost every spare moment), with a side of Legos. He is now plowing through the Math-U-See Beta book, but we have stalled a bit on our tour through science. History is still a bright spot, though.

Today we effectively closed our survey of human migration and our foray into the rise of civilizations has begun. Calvin is seriously geeked about checking out early American civilizations, and I can't blame him. We picked up a few great books at sales this past weekend and are ready to decipher the Mayan code, etc., etc.

I get new glasses tomorrow, and we are in the process of packing for a big trip. The biggest Calvin has been on yet because it requires an airplane. So there are a lot of items on our to-do list for this week, all of them with a rather happy end goal.

Winter weekend

It started with a light weight snow storm. Not a storm at all, but since it's the first real snow we've seen all year any amount that called for shoveling might have been classified a storm. We battened the hatches and consumed soup and fresh bread in front of a fire on Friday night, and woke to a few inches on the ground and light flakes in the air on Saturday morning.

Saturday we made a book sale day. One of the only things worth getting up for on a Saturday morning is a good used book sale. We hit two on Saturday, and then our favorite lunch spot in downtown Ann Arbor, too—we were celebrating Jon's first published piece, which came out on Friday.

There was some Wii Fit Plus, some piano, a lot of book reading. Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Snap Circuits, Lego play, napping, and cozy fires.

Sunday we found a new video to add to our American history collection—Solutreans: The First Americans— that allowed us to discuss not only survival during the stone age, but also the concept of controversial theories and changing, or evolving, beliefs based on increased archeological evidence.

Our colds are almost gone, our energy is returning. We closed the weekend with a dinner party with friends, Calvin is in bed, Jon and I are in the second half of the second season of Twin Peaks (we have been devouring the episodes one after another after Calvin's bedtime, discovering a love we missed out on in adolescence) and we are ready for what promises to be a very busy week ahead.