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...

Sunday in pictures

Art by Jon

She's getting chalk on her butt...

Why yes, yes that is grilled dinner on the back deck in early March. Ahhhh.

My Father's Dragon Cartography

Calvin disappeared for a little while again on Friday. Disappeared into his office, I mean, which is when he creates his greatest art. This week has been all about the My Father's Dragon trilogy for him. I read the first book to him over the course of a few nights of bedtime reading, but he was in such a hurry that he read the next two books to himself over the better part of an afternoon. Today's office time produced a journal entry (and I guess he plans to write two more to cover the other two books), and a collection of maps. Fantasy cartography is such a beautiful thing!

The My Father's Dragon trilogy consists of My Father's Dragon, Elmer and the Dragon, and The Dragons of Blueland, all written by Ruth Stiles Gannett right around 1950. They are cute fantasy books about a boy who uses his own ingenuity to rescue a dragon, after which the two become friends. The books are full of the charm and innocence present in most mid-century children's books. The writing is simple enough for young readers, but the story is interesting enough for even the oldest of us.

We've linked up to OLM's Saturday's Artist.

Out of nowhere

We've all been smacked upside the head with a "spring" cold. It came out of nowhere! And we're just laying low. Calvin and I stayed in our pajamas all day today. We skipped our homeschool gathering today—the first day of new classes, too. I even took the dogs out in my pajamas (just to the front yard), and Jon came home early to rest.

Calvin and I both practiced the piano. He drew a lot of maps (I love this), read a little, and played (make-believe) Piglet and Pooh. We played a couple of math games on the computer together, and a round of Upwords, but mostly we hunkered down with history books. We hung another timeline on the last free wall in the house—3,000 b.c.e. to 100 c.e.—and started filling it in with the happenings in Mesopotamia. We read about Gilgamesh and Enkidu, about Sargon, and a little about Hammurabi.

With Jon home early we drank tea, ate snacks, played more games, and ordered pizza. We watched Michael Wood on King Arthur (In Search of Myths and Heroes) over dinner. We started reading The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, together before bed (as a side note, Juster is also the author of one of my favorite picture books, The Hello Goodbye Window).

With a little rest we're hoping to be as good as new on Monday.