To Calvin, who is five years old today

Our wonderful boy, another year has come and gone in the wink of an eye. You have grown a great deal over the past year and each day I think that you are beginning to look more like a little boy and less like the baby I have known, and is it any wonder? You have accomplished much in just one year. Last fall you were easily frustrated by trying to pedal your bike, while this spring I have to jog just to keep up with you. Last summer you were wary of the water but you've taken several swimming classes now and are improving with each one. You take the stairs one foot to step now instead of two, and you've had your first dental appointment.

There are many things that I would like to tell you, many things I want you to know about this time. When you read these letters years from now I hope that your heart will remember the love and joy that filled our days, but you aren't likely to remember the specifics of those days, and I write these letters to capture those as well as to mark your growth and your accomplishments, because at four years old your days were always filled with joy and wonder and a whole lot of activity.

At this age much of our time is spent together, and we do a lot between eight in the morning and eight at night. Every day we practice the piano, read books, and straighten around the house. Every week you help me with laundry, with emptying garbages, with the shopping for and putting away of foods. Often you help me bake or cook dinner, you set the table, you clear your place. We like watching birds, taking nature hikes, reading books, and painting at the kitchen table. In the past six months you have discovered Legos, and are quite good at following the directions of assembly all by yourself. You have become increasingly independent, especially now that you can read.

This was the year in which you really learned how to read. Last spring you recognized letters and could write your own name and had started reading short phonics books, so I helped you start a journal. Shortly after that you declared that you would learn to read, and you did. You started with short books of few words, quickly moved up to longer picture books, by fall were reading real chapter books. Many of the books that we read aloud together last year, like Charlotte's Web and The Waterhorse, you are now reading to yourself, and you have discovered others as well. Your comprehension is wonderful and your vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. This one accomplishment has opened many doors for you and has been very empowering. It has also shown us that learning can occur naturally.

This was also the year in which we (more officially) started homeschooling. In general I try to follow your interests, and you have always made those very clear. Mostly we follow topics of interest from the books we read, and those have taken us to places like Africa and China, and to times like ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, and the Middle Ages in Europe. This year you have continued with your love for trains, and have added knights and volcanoes to your favorites. We have read book after book and even watched videos to fill your curiosity, but you are never really sated and your curiosity grows along with your knowledge and understanding. I want to always remember this as the year that we read together all of the books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum for the first time, and now you have begun re-reading them to yourself. You love these characters as much as you love trains, and as much as other children love the pop culture characters of this era. Your imagination has made them real for you and you hold them very dear. It is the magic of your age. It was the magic of this year.

The cat is realllllly long today

The cat is extra long today, as is the day extra hot.

Today was one of closing chapters and opening doors. This morning we made a final trip to my grandparents' house thirty minutes from here, a day before the house sale is closed. My grandparents passed away some time ago and the house is not an old one, but looking at it brings to mind many years of love and joy, and for me any permanent good bye is bound to be a somewhat difficult one. I'm sentimental like that.

The afternoon was a mess of responsibilities. We cleaned a lot of the house, I signed Calvin up for swimming, we went to two stores (and were only successful at one), we visited the dentist (Calvin's first time), and we got haircuts (mine is a train wreck). The "opened doors" then must be my learning to live with an embarrassing hair cut, and Calvin learning about the dentist. He did a great job and seems to hold none of my reservations about people messing around inside my mouth.

Tomorrow is the day when I get to admit that I've been doing this for five years and still have no idea what I'm doing or what the plan is. This is, however, the first year that I've come to believe that these are good things. I shouldn't know what I'm doing and there is no plan. Five years, though. That's kind of fun. This is the year that we've decided Calvin will be allowed to get a library card, will start receiving an allowance, and will now have to walk instead of riding in the cart at the store (actually, I realized only a few weeks ago that he's pretty well over the weight limit on those seats, so I guess it's about time).

Ninety-six degrees is hot

We spent the morning at the library, which is air conditioned. At noon we came home and enjoyed lunch and a few games of Carcassonne. In the earlier part of the afternoon we ran some errands, but the heat got the better part of our good natures, and as five o-clock neared, our errands still not quite finished, we quit early and headed home. The thermometer read 96, so we spent the rest of the evening, before eating a cold supper, just like this:

party planning

It is a fine evening. A soft, though not cool, breeze is blowing and the sun is at that stage of warm evening glow. Calvin is in bed. He is reading about bats and The Wizard of Oz as he tries to find sleep. The past week has brought unseasonably hot days and drought-like weather—a slight shock in the wake of so much rain—and between the heat of the days, and the late setting sun at night, there has been less sleep and more grouching around here. It doesn't help that our neighbors put their young children to bed after ten at night, and they all play noisily outside until then. A part of me would love to live by the sun, to go to bed when it gets dark and rise when it's light, but that's not enough sleep for Calvin, as I'm finding lately. That's not to say that we always mandate an early bedtime. I love that the flexibility of this life allows us to stay up late when the night calls us by name (or promises s'mores).

We are gearing up over here for a fifth birthday celebration. Calvin turns five on Thursday. We will celebrate on that day just the three of us (just the two during the day, in fact), and on Saturday we will have his grandparents and some other family over for dinner. He is planning the party himself—a Wizard of Oz spectacular. He has a mulititude of plans, some of which will be possible, others that are pretty pie-in-the-sky. I love that he is helping plan, I love that he is excited about the event, and I love even more that he is perfectly pleased to keep it as the small affair we've had every year since his first (small affair, of course, referring to the number of guests, not to the extravagance of the celebration he is actively planning).

Do you know how hard it is to find Wizard of Oz accoutrements that are not based on the movie? They are, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. Which is probably best, since that will keep everything homegrown. I will be playing with fondant for the first time ever this week.

Sunday joy