Blanket surgery

Through the years Blanket has accompanied Calvin just about everywhere. He's been to play dates, parks, restaurants, Iowa, Disney World, Italy, camping trips. Up and down the stairs, in and out of the car, dragged through just about everything. He has been washed, but probably not as often as the sanitary police would recommend, and I realized just last week that I couldn't actually remember the last time he'd taken a good swim and decided that meant the time had come.

There are actually two Blankets, and one Mini Blanket, that are a pretty important part of our family. Before Calvin was born my Aunt Lonnie made a set of four identical blankets and four matching burp cloths for me. Over the years two of the larger blankets have gone missing (probably somewhere in the house, or a travel bag, etc.), and one of the burp cloths has been appropriated as "Minis". The two remaining blankets have, of course, taken the brunt of Calvin's adoration and devotion. They show all the signs of being greatly loved, bringing to mind stories like The Velveteen Rabbit, or Nothing.

I find something endearing about Calvin's continued besottedness. The bigger he gets, the more I melt when I see him lugging that old friend along without a care or concern, or when I check on him at night and find him clutching all three pieces tightly in his sleep. So when he asked me to fix the fraying edges, of course I went right to work. All three Blanket got the full spa treatment, beginning with a gentle bath in the sink, followed by a relaxing dry in the sun, and finishing with a nip here and a tuck there at the sewing machine. 

Calvin called it Blanket surgery. And just like that, an old friend was restored, and a little boy was delighted.

Have I ever mentioned that on occasion he strongly reminds me of Linus?

Making a big splash

Three camps in two weeks

Boy Choir camp last week, 4H Coverbud Camp this week, and a two hour Junior Naturalist meeting over the weekend. It has been a kind of weird two weeks for me because certainly I haven't had anywhere near this much time to myself for, oh, about the last eight years. I spent most of the time sewing or reading review books, and every once in a while I would feel a fleeting moment of panic and wonder what it was I was supposed to be doing—what it was that I was missing because it wasn't usually so quiet.

For Calvin it was a delightful few weeks. He pretty much doted on the boy in the choir who told him everything he knew (and probably more) about quantum physics. He pretty much ran the classes on world geography in his 4H camp. He became intimately acquainted with the markings of an American Woodcock in his naturlists class. And after each long day he came home exhilarated...and completely worn out.

Turning eight

And then he was eight. It happened so fast, and I'm so far behind, that I haven't written his letter yet, but it's coming eventually, I promise.

In our family we have a tradition of celebrating birthday weeks. Why? Because a birthday doesn't always fall on a convenient day, or sometimes people just have bad days, or sometimes people are under the weather. Having only one day to celebrate all year long seems hardly fair. So in our house the celebrant gets a whole week of lighter chores, their choice of extra activities, and their choice of meals. It's well earned on the other 51 weeks of the year.

On his actual birthday, our newly minted eight year old chose dinner at Real Seafood Co. so he could have crab legs. The day before found us at the Food Gatherers fund raiser dinner, and the rest of the week consisted of various combinations of tacos (shrimp tacos, chicken tacos, and beef tacos). On the final day of his birthday week he had the whole family over for grilled salmon and salad and games in the yard. We took cookies to homsechool group, cupcakes to nature group, and made strawberry shortcake with family.

Perhaps it is a sign of his maturation that he had only a limited birthday list this year. Prior lists have been longer than the number of party guests, and at times audacious in request. This year's list included one outdoorsman's knife, and three different books. Without wanting to encourage greed, I asked him a couple of times, in subtle ways, if he was sure his list was complete. The upside, of course, is that he got eveything he asked for, plus some great art supplies and a totally awesome wizard's hat to go with his cloak, and was completely and utterly pleased.

And then the birthday, and the birthweek, were past, and what we had left was an eight year old. An eight-year-old in a wizard's costume with an outdoorsman's knife.

Deck frog, spigot frog, a tale of two amphibians

Every year around this time we have frogs that hang out on our house. Really that's on our house, although around it is also applicable. This year we have two frogs who have been more regular and reliable than any frog of the past. This is their story.

We first met deck frog on a warm afternoon. We spotted him by chance hanging out on the lower railing of our deck. We took pictures, we enjoyed watching him, and when we left for another activity, though nothing of it when he was gone upon our return. Frogs come, frogs go. A day later, though, he was on the deck again, this time on top of the railing. Over the course of a week or two we realized that he was always around our deck somewhere: if you just took the time to search him out he was there somewhere.

We named him Deck Frog.

Then came the morning that I was outside watering. Since potted plants love sun-warmed water, I started with the potted herbs on the deck, watering them from the can I leave full nearby, before refilling the can at the rain barrel and moving on to the raised garden boxes and their vegetables. Imagine my surprise when, upon finishing my job, I put the can down to see deck frog climbing out, perhaps feeling a little harried. I apologized profusely and returned the can, and the frog, to the deck.

When a similar thing happened again a few days later, I went out and bought myself a new watering can so Deck Frog could keep the old one.

Spigot Frog is an equally constant but less personable presence in our lives, perhaps because we spend a lot more time hanging out on our deck than we do hanging out by our spigot. I met Spigot Frog when I went to attach the hose to the outdoor spigot before setting the sprinkler on our newly transplanted grass, and there he was on the ledge of the cutout in our siding. He did not move when I attached the hose, and had moved only so far as the other side of the cutout when I came back to turn the water off. For weeks he has been there throughout most of the day, gone only at night when he is hunting.

We named him Spigot Frog.

Eventually they will leave us, as all our froggy visitors do summer after summer, so we will just enjoy them as long as we can. They are both Gray treefrogs, by the way, common visitors to Michigan homes. I wonder if Spigot Frog and Deck Frog go on dates when we are not looking.