If you need us we'll be in Mesopotamia

Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, human migration to the continents. The stone age, the Fertile Crescent, the first farmers, the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Nile and Egypt. Calvin can't seem to get enough of any of it. Nearly every book he picks up, every picture he draws, and every chance he gets "can we have tea and read some more about history?"

It's a beautiful thing.

So what are we doing? We're loosely following Intellego's World History volume I unit study, and The Story of the World, and have found Archaeology for Kids to be a good go-with. We've watched and re-watched all of the Legacy videos. A favorite new story book around here is Mik's Mammoth, with its rhyming language and beautiful watercolor illustrations (love), and the Middle East and Asia Geo Puzzles have come in rather handy. I knew I'd love those things.

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.

Cave paintings on a Wednesday

Today turned out not to be for chores. Who needs clean laundry anyway? We're still doing swim lessons every Wednesday at the Goldfish Swim School on Wednesday mornings, something that Calvin loves, and while we're in town we tend to run errands. But when we came home we got right down to the serious stuff and created some cave paintings.

Cave paintings are mentioned in several of the videos we've watched on prehistoric human life, and we checked out a couple of books from our library, too—Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave, which was the best source we could find for pictures, and The First Painter, which was a fantastic story book with beautiful illustrations. So today we tried our own. Calvin collected items from the yard that would have been available to the original cave painters, busted out the washable red paint (which he called ochre for the duration of the project), and tried his hand (and fingers and pieces of nature) at painting a mammoth, a Megaloceros, and other designs he'd seen in the books.

It was a lot of fun. A little messy, and a lot of fun.

Don't sew with cats

It is snowing rather insistently outside at this moment and that adds to the festive feeling that is beginning to take over the house. Our morning project was to light the tree and, although it's still awaiting all but two ornaments, it does add a cheery glow to the place.

It actually rained all day—a driving, frigid rain that finally talked us out of running the errands we'd had planned. We spent the morning on the tree and on a few tidbits here and there, like piano, Legos, and rediscovering favorite annual books. Then we got as far as getting dressed after lunch only to stand in the front window and watch the rain blow in sheets, listening to the wind batter the house, before we turned right around and changed back into pajamas. It was just that kind of day.

So a little more decorating, a little time spent with human evolution and migration (we found a great new book: Evolution, The Human Story), and some rediscovering of our favorite seasonal books (ahhh, the Polar Express, just for my train lover).

And then there was a lot of crafting.

We did some prep work for Christmas cards, and then we tackled a sewing project. Sewing on the floor with a cat in the room is near impossible (I could not convince her that the thread was not a toy). Still we actually finished two ornaments together and learned along the way; I learned a blanket stitch, and Calvin got his first go at sewing, something he greatly enjoyed.

And that snow outside, if it does what they say (although when does it ever?), will blanket us with up to five inches of wet snow over night. I love that first morning of waking to white, but I hope it doesn't slow us down on the errands that now must be run—our St. Nicholas celebration practically right around the corner.

Let the baking begin

We started the pie yesterday with a number of local organic pie pumpkins, baking, pureeing, and draining them overnight. The smell of Thanksgiving all through the house...two days early.

So why, then, did I spend all of today thinking that tomorrow was Thanksgiving Eve?

Thanksgiving Eve. The biggest pizza night of the year. Even bigger than the Super Bowl. We had lasagna.

We started our day the usual way—with some reading, some exercise, then heading to swimming...only to find that the swim bag did not contain a swim suit. It happens to the best of us. Reschedule swimming, pick up the last couple of things at the store, lunch, and let the baking begin.

Calvin was a big help this year. He cracked eggs, he measured all the solids, he added all the liquids, he handled the mixer and ran the grinder. We baked the pumpkin pie, froze the leftover puree, made the cranberry relish, then drew mammoths, rhinos, caves.

Jon was home early—early enough to take Calvin to the swimming class make-up while I made lasagna for dinner and did the mountain of dishes we'd already created. And the house still smells like Thanksgiving.

The mammoths, rhinos, and caves were probably my favorite part.