A kiss of gentle warmth

"...earth tilted her icy northern face imperceptibly closer to the great shining star she circled...felt a kiss of gentle warmth and slowly awakened from the sleep of a deeper and colder winter. Spring stirred reluctantly at first, then with the urgency of a season whose time was short, threw off the frozen cover in an exuberant rush that watered and quickened the soil." (from The Mammoth Hunters, by Jean M. Auel)

Who doesn't yearn for spring as the snows are finally receding and the early flowers pushing out of the ground? It's become a trite expression, but it's the only one I want to make right now. I am re-reading the first five Earth's Children series books, in anticipation of the new release in two weeks. The books are heavily punctuated with seasons, or preparing for seasons, something that you'd think was behind us now that we have homes with indoor heating and cooling, roads cut through difficult terrain and plows to care for them, grocery stores with in and out of season foods, freezers, you name it. But we still define our lives by the seasons, something that is evident in articles, journal entries, and social network posts everywhere. Right now, spring, spring, spring, it's all anyone can talk about.

Watching a child live the seasons is a completely different story, though. It's not that Calvin doesn't understand seasons, but when you live for the now, the season really matters little. Warm and sunny? Let's go bird watching and ride our bikes. Rain? Let's find puddles, or read books in bed. Snow? Let's sled, or stay in and play games. It doesn't matter, it's all appealing. I'm trying to learn from his example, but right now all I can think of doing is soaking up as much sun and warmth as I can because I'm sure it will snow again. If not next week, then the week after, and as much as I love snow in December and January, it's green grass and blooming flowers that I'm longing for right now, as trite as that sounds.

We woke to a shining sun and warmth in the air, so we did our chores early, made quick work of our Wednesday store trip, then broke into the spring air flooding the neighborhood. We walked to the pond to look for our muskrat (too early) and we explored the castle tree (it really looks like a castle turret from up the path). We found moss, talked to bugs, abused the leftover snow in our front yard, and the sidewalk chalk made a comeback (that's an elephant eating spiny melons off a palm tree in the desert). I ran outside, actually outside, into town and back, then we grilled dinner, and when Calvin went to bed I could still see the houses across the street in the waning light of day.

The promise of spring

I'm not expecting spring any time soon. I've seen the forecast for the next week and there is more snow on our horizon. And even if they change their mind and make it rain, just the threat alone, hanging over our heads all week long, is enough to remind me that spring isn't here yet. That didn't stop us from playing the garden today, though. We spent the morning inside, closing up some of our Africa exploration, getting the laundry done (in ancient Egypt, I'm told, they may have done their laundry in the Nile, so watch out for that hippo), and practicing piano. I hit the treadmill, we had lunch, we made it to the library to sort books, and when we returned in the mid afternoon the weather was sunny and warm enough to beckon us to look for new shoots, feed the birds, and check our backyard gardening.

Some of the tulips are here, just pushing their noses through the cold, wet earth, and a handful of other plants are starting to green up, but the trees are reserving their splendor just yet and I can only hope the three newest will eventually join the party. All our backyard work from last summer seems to have wintered well; the new sump pump routes are holding their own and thanks to them the lawn and gardens are drier than in any other spring we've lived here (which is to say that our backyard is not a swamp this spring). And as we strolled through our yard we heard our first Sandhill Crane call of the year. They are back and have hopefully brought warmer weather behind them. Spring isn't here, but her promise is.

Saturday together

I realize that I am fortunate enough to spend my weekdays doing exactly what I want to be doing, so waiting for Saturday has nothing to do with taking a break (I'm still at "work" after all) and everything to do with the three of us being together. The seasons dictate how we spend our time together, and right now we're between sledding and hiking, so we've been spending our Saturdays at book sales and in quaint downtowns. We were in Chelsea today for their library book sale and then we had brunch. Their book sale is harder to maneuver than ours, but cheaper, and we brought home some pretty fantastic kids finds, like another Baum book (an offshoot from the Oz series), and a book of art and activities from the MMA (completely untouched), to name just two, for less than a cup of coffee would have cost at Starbucks. I don't even like Starbucks.

We woke up to sun and relative warmth, we came home in frigid wind and a little bit of rain, so we spent the rest of the day on music, art, books, games, and toys, all in front of a fire. We're just about finished with the tenth Oz book, I finished the first Earth's Children book and started the second, Calvin finished his Book of the Dead scroll and Jon made one, too, and there was piano practice, and guitar practice, shapes with imagination, and playing with our pyramids. And then leftovers, still in front of the fire. It was just a day together.

"Giza has three major pyramids"

I try to leave Fridays chore free, heavy cooking free, and errand free, allowing us to stay in and enjoy pajamas, books, or whatever sounds good at the time. I enjoyed my own book, Calvin enjoyed his Playmobil guys for a while, and when we got bored with the quiet we turned on the radio and embarked on more exploration. Pyramids. Yesterday we read about modern Egypt and ancient Egypt and compared them then I gave him his choice of study and this is what he chose. So today we read about them and decided to build one out of Legos. There's definitely some math involved in pyramids, of course.We used some of that, and a good amount of imagination.

And when we'd finished one, he informed me that "Giza has three major pyramids," and we kept going.

And then there had to be camels, too.

And to complete the setup, he says, the Pyramids will each need their copy of The Book of the Dead, so he started making scrolls to roll up and place inside them.

And as I built pyramids, read books out loud, and watched him make his scroll from over the top of my own book, I was lost in thought and some further misgivings about yesterday's death conversation. I am torn here between following the path of his interest, and being concerned about a loss of sensitivity regarding death and loss. I am still mulling this over. And over and over. Am I over-thinking it? I'm sure, but I have a strong desire to stash the pyramids somewhere and turn to discussions of hippos, camels, crocodiles, and cuisine in Egypt, leaving death far behind. To follow, or to gently direct? I cannot decide.

Too soon, too soon

We finally went to Egypt today. After we practiced piano, read some Oz, straightened some things around the house, went to story time, shelved in the library sale room, exercised, had lunch, and made dinner (for the crockpot), we finally entered Egypt. And in so doing talked about the difference between ancient and modern. Then we read some of the myths or stories of Ancient Egypt. Then we talked about the pryamids and about mummies. And you know what? That's actually a lot of talk about death. Mummies are dead, and all those ancient people are dead, and Seth actually murdered Osiris. Sometimes I plan things through very carefully...and then miss the forest for the trees, as I found out later in the day.

It was a good day here, and I don't mind dark and rainy days, but by evening the rain was snow again and the temperatures were falling. I look towards the spring flowers still adorning our table after our weekend party (which failed to actually summon spring) to keep my spirits up, but I miss last night's fog. Fog is mysterious and allows you to believe you are anywhere on earth. Anywhere, because suddenly you have no neighbors. Plus it reminds you that the air is warm enough to hold moisture, and the melting snow is filling it to the gills (ha ha).

Late in the day, after some extra cleaning and finally shrinking our table back to size after the dinner party, I checked on Calvin, who was in the other room after having finished his own chores of emptying the trashes (tomorrow is garbage day) and feeding the pets. He was "writing" a story as part of his "acting out a story" (how he refers to all of his play acting or pretending) about a cat who had been killed. The people who loved the cat very much didn't know what had happened and he was writing a sort of memoir so that they would, and so that the cat could be remembered.

Clearly he is thinking deeply now about death, and his story is reminiscent of one we (very mistakenly) saw on a video about rhinos last week, when three of the rhinos were tragically killed by poachers (and if I had known that was part of the video rated for kids his age I would never in a million years have borrowed it from the library as part of our Africa exploration). We talked about this cat, the circumstances of his death, and about the people who loved him, for quite some time. Calvin was clearly sad, affected. I was horrified.

He is working through some things that definitely bothered him, and now I have to worry that I have erred irreversibly. Would talking about death with regard to Egyptology have been so bad if it was not coming immediately after that oops of a video about rhinos? Would the video about rhinos have been given a second thought if it had not been followed up by talk of mummies? My instinct tells me that regardless this is healthy development—finding a way to work through an upsetting issue by "writing" about it, something he used to do by "interacting" with his imaginary friend, Mouse. But my heart tells me it is broken. Is he not too young to have to work through such misfortunes? I cannot protect him forever, but wouldn't it have been okay at least until he was five?