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.