Perhaps

We opened the windows today, threw them wide to let in the fresh spring air. It was probably still a little chilly, but we just couldn't wait. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is spring.

We read, and cleaned, and played all morning. Calvin played with tangrams, created another Pooh scrapbook, this one for Owl, and then started in on the crafts in his new Highlights magazine. They're doozies—it's the April Fool's Day issue.

We did some chores, because the spring just calls for sweeping and straightening and storing and rejuvenating, then we spent the better part of our afternoon outside soaking up the sun and the breeze. We biked to the mailbox to look at the rain swollen pond, then to park to make use of the slides. It was wet after last night's storm and we have to get out to buy Calvin new rain boots before we can go hiking in our fields, something that gets number one priority this week, so today we stuck to the neighborhood footpath. We call it the bird path because this time of year we can go there to watch all manner of bird species flit about, sing, dance, and fill the world with life. We saw robins, sparrows, and juncos today.

Back at home we made tea and spread out in the sunshine on the floor to read. Calvin immersed himself in Mesopotamia, exploring The British Museum web site, while I tried to speed read through an historical fiction novel I have to review before Thursday. I looked up and every single one of us (except for the elusive Oahu) was in the sunshine somehwere—Moose and Iris in the front door, Ollie, Calvin, and I on the playroom floor, and Cookie on the window seat. It was that kind of beautiful afternoon.

And to top it all off, just before bed we went outside to view Jupiter and Venus in a brilliant spring sky. The Mesopotamians and the Mayans, Calvin reminds me, would have known when to see this special sight, too.

A second installment

Yesterday was warm and rainy. It brought our first thunderstorm of the year and greened things up a bit in the process. It was the kind of rainy that makes you want to stay cuddled in bed in the morning, but in a good, sleepy kind of way. The kind of rainy day that stirs creativity, and begs for long reading sessions. Calvin spent it creating cuneiform tablets and a cylinder seal, re-reading the My Father's Dragon series and writing a second installment to his journal on the books, playing piano, coloring, and watching out the front window for the return of our song birds—they are always thick this time of year and one of our favorite pastimes is watching them. Today we were rewarded with what we believe was an indigo blue bunting on the feeder. Oh, and our bluebirds are back in the backyard, and the mama robin back under the deck.

And the cutest update to a journal entry ever...