Dinosaurs, discovery, and make-believe

PaleoJoe was at the library today. If you're not familiar with PaleoJoe, which we weren't and likely neither are you, he's exactly what he sounds like: an energetic, entertaining, real, live paleontologist, complete with stereotypical hat. The beard suited him quite nicely, too.

PaleoJoe is a local author, and between book tours (or probably the other way) he's at a site in Utah, digging for dinosaurs. PaleoJoe had just the right amount of scientific information to share, mixed with just the right flavor of humor to make it lively and absorbable. We learned a lot. I, for one, had heard that new thought on the T-Rex paints him as a scavenger or opportunistic hunter, but PaleoJoe gave us all the great arguments for why that would be true. Just ask Calvin and he will likely tell you about that carnivore's poor eyesight, good sense of smell, and brain shape matching that of the scavenging vulture, the opposite of the super hunting eagle. There's a bit about the tiny arms, too, and the danger of running or lunging after the prey you are stalking if you have no arms with which to catch yourself if you fall. We also explored the theory of the great die off and the effects of the volcanic ash from a super eruption.

PaleoJoe brought with him replicas of fossils he'd found, and also so fun dinosaur puppets. A velociraptor with hair? Well, no, but very fine feathers that resemble hair, yes.

PaleoJoe also brought some of his books with him, because this was a book tour, and we are suckers for books.

After PaleoJoe Calvin has an enlivened interest in dinosaurs and digging. Later in the afternoon we visited the park by my parents' house and discovered great dig sites.

And femurs and teeth.

And then, because it's make-believe and can take us anywhere we want, he climbed into his futuristic lab and used the computer to create images of the dinosaurs whose bones he'd found, and shipped them off to schools world-wide for other kids to discover.

He'll be in Africa if you need him

Imagination is a brilliant, beautiful, colorful thing, full of life and joy and laughter. Calvin has become enamored with the Magic Tree House book series: kids traveling in time and place via tree house (magic, of course) and watched over by the kindly Morgan Le Fey (I thought Morgan Le Fey was evil in Arthurian legend?). This weekend he had the fantastic idea of building a tree house in which to act out or pretend-play some of these scenarios himself. He had it all worked out, except for the part where we don't have big trees. No problem, we already had a play house, thanks to some neighbors with bigger kids, and a deck that is a half story off the ground. Instant tree house. This morning he was in ancient Africa, and then later in ancient Rome. Tomorrow I suspect he'll be visiting the dinosaurs (but that's because we are planning a trip to the zoo to see the newly reopened dino exhibit).

Let's roast marshmallows

For as long as we've lived in this house the three-day holiday weekends that bookend the summer season have been entirely filled with time consuming, labor intensive projects, mostly yard related (the summary of which can be found here). We've taken out umpteen square feet of sod, planted scores of native wildlife enticing plants, and spread copious amounts of dirt in new gardens. We've dug trenches, moved rocks, altered drainage. And every holiday weekend left us dirty, tired and sore. Today we did the one and only thing on our yard to-do list: we put in a fire pit. It took a handful of hours and a relatively small amount of back-breaking work. Now we don't know what to do with ourselves. And so we sit, enjoying the view of our new fire pit but wholly unable to use it since it started raining only minutes after we finished and took pictures, and has not stopped since.

Calvin helped with measuring and leveling—tools are fun—but once we started working the yard was so muddy he chose to spend most of the time reading, sitting in his play house, or playing with Legos instead. He's performing a re-enactment of the Battle of Troy right now, a slightly more gentle version of the Battle of Troy in which a magical horse makes sure that all the fighting is fair and safe and dragons are ready at any moment to step in and enforce the rules.

Calvin and I have a project we've been working on for a few days now, too. An indoor project, with lots of colored paper and glue, to keep us busy on all these rainy days. I suspect we'll finish it up tomorrow morning and I'll get to share it then.

The weather reports are promising warmth and sun for the remainder of the weekend once we get past the morning tomorrow. I hope they are right. Not only is that more enjoyable than the chilly rains we've had for about a week, but our yard, our whole region, needs the chance to dry out.

Just like breathing

Last night I wanted to be able to say something special about Mother's Day. I sat down to do that before I went to bed and got started several times only to stop and delete everything. The truth is, I still feel a bit like a phony when I'm being celebrated on Mother's Day. Maybe that's due to my relative newness on the job (I've only been performing those duties for about five years now to my mom's 34), or maybe I'm just still skittish of the job title. If someone asked me about myself I'm not sure "mother" would be the first descriptor out of my mouth. I consider myself so many other things besides, so many other things that require work and dedication, like being a runner, or a reader, or a seamstress (because sewer definitely isn't right), or a cook. Which is not to say that being a mother isn't a matter of dedication and work, but motherhood was a choice I made those five years ago and now it is simply a part of me. It is like breathing. Maybe I feel funny about celebrating my motherhood the way I would feel funny about celebrating my breathing. Each breath is joyous, each day as a mother is joyous. To look at it any other way would be folly.

So that was yesterday. It was a beautiful, warmish, sunny day. We cleaned up and relaxed, we went to the store. My boys gave me a really special present (Proust, third edition uniform 12 volume set, 1949) and some really sweet cards. We had our own mothers over and my aunt and we all celebrated motherhood together. And breathing, too, because the spring air was so fresh and sweet it would be just the day to celebrate something like breathing.

And today I woke up and I was still breathing and I was still a mother, and both were precious. Even as we did laundry and shelved books at the library. Even as we watered new plants and cleaned up the yard. Even as we sat outside in the still vibrant sun reading our own books separately, and then the Aeneid together. Especially as we walked to the mailbox pretending to sidestep the Harpies (robins) and to run from the Cyclops (tall pines) only to be blown to Carthage (the park) in a violent storm summoned by Juno. Yes, especially then it was all precious. See? Just like breathing.

The Great Backyard Bird Count

The spring-like weather is now long past. Yesterday when we got up the snow was gone and the sun was out but the wind was raging and the temperatures dropping. There is ice and snow in the forecast for tomorrow. We practiced the piano and read some favorite picture books and Calvin played with Legos while I hit the treadmill, then we packed off to the library for a presentation on Michigan wildlife. I think I've mentioned before how much I love our children's librarian for her rich and varied programming (I just hope impending budget cuts don't kill that).

A couple of days ago we finished our latest book of Oz so back at home Calvin wrote a summary of the book (I love watching his writing grow and develop) before dividing our house into the dominions of the Nome King King (the downstairs) and the lands of the Fellowship of Fairies (upstairs) and I enjoyed watching him scuttle around pretending I know not what. It is wise to stay out of the tube (stairs) connecting the two.

We've been looking forward to the Great Backyard Bird Count for a while now so we were more than ready for yesterday's kickoff. Calvin is keeping track of our observations in his journal and I'll grab a picture of that at the end of the count period, the last day of which is Monday. We observed our own backyard for one 15 minute block this morning, counting mostly grackles and our beloved bluebirds, and we descended upon my parents' house for a second block of counting time in the afternoon. As a general rule my mom, with her treed backyard, has a greater variety of birds at her feeder and we were looking forward to counting them. Instead we got a lesson in the importance of leaf cover, an the effects of a lack thereof, so we counted out her front window and saw about 13 crows zip by. After that it was all Legos. Today we'll stick to our own feeders and see what we get.

If the wind dies down tonight we will be taking part in a snow moon hike with the county parks and recreation, another thing we've been looking forward to all week.