Dark and gray

In Africa today we played Mancala, read Pinduli and Wangari's Trees, explored some traditional African music on Pandora, and cooked a (hopefully) authentic Kenyan dinner.

In our more down to earth life we finished laundry, did the gorcery shopping, and pooh poohed the weather, because while we don't mind going out in the rain, we do mind going out in the rain when the termperatures are barely above freezing. We did longingly gaze out our back window at the garden that is once again visible, though. Piano, Mammoth Hunt, and the Lego universe was formally introduced to the Playmobil group. I missed the crayons and the colors today, paints, markers, or pencils. I didn't realize until we sat down to read before bed that they'd never left their boxes today. Maybe that would have brighten an otherwise dark, gray day.

Birthday fun

We got back to Africa today, and Calvin taught me a little something about memory. He has a lot of it. Animals upon animals and countries upon countries of it. This exploration has clearly been the most real for him, was brought the most alive. He is living it, feeling it, and clearly enjoying. Africa has that effect. We didn't have much time today, just a skimming over what we already learned and time to discuss what he wants to explore next, and after talking about it we're moving north starting tomorrow, just far enough north to explore the pyramids of Egypt. He's geeked.

The rest of today was the first of spring swimming lessons, paczki enjoyment, qwirkle, paper crafting, piano, and a birthday celebration dinner. My mom's request for her birthday was dinner together, and have a great time we did.

When I read the menu options to him he immediately opted for crab legs. He's never had them before, mind you, nor do I think he's ever seen any of us eat them, but he wanted them for sure. And who knew dinner could be such a learning experience. Crab. Legs. Crab legs. And lobster tail, too. And lobsters in the tank.

He ate.

He cracked, and he ate.

He discovered tendons and how to work the claws.

He explored the tail.

And when he was done with that, and before the birthday ice cream arrived, he visited the lobster tank. It was a lot to absorb, the thought that those things were the same as what had been on our plates, and for me it's as near an argument for vegetarianism that I might cave to as anything else, but he was really just absorbing the idea, not upset by it. Me? I don't want to think about the before and after.

If you always look through inquisitive eyes, then the whole world is your classroom.

Music on a Monday afternoon

We'd intended to spend today in Africa, and I love that if we change our minds we can easily change our day as well. There is no prewritten script, no lesson plan to follow. We said hi to the elephants and lions we got to know last week, and while shelving books at the library in the afternoon we found a few neat books with African art that we flipped through before they hit the shelf, but the rest of our day was spent at home, glorious home.

Instead of traveling we were creating. Creating clean laundry, creating clean spaces, creating new cities in the play room, creating music, creating in the sewing room, creating art.

We explored our new guitar this afternoon. Along with the piano, which both Calvin and I are still diligently pursuing, the guitar is something I have always wanted to learn. I love folk music and the sound of a good voice accompanied by acoustic guitar. I have (possibly unrealistic) dreams of sitting around our fireplace at night singing to the guitar with friends. A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to collect a pretty nice guitar from another Freecycler. It's been sitting in the corner calling my name ever since and I've been too nervous to pick it up. I'm doing pretty well with the piano, but I need a little more understanding of chords. Jon, on the other hand, has years upon years, a lifetime, of training under his fingers. Tonight we played our first duet, although Jon was concentrating too hard to sing.

It's a fun instrument for Calvin to explore. He's learned a lot about the piano already, and the guitar uses the same method for sound with a similar focus on chords so it's a logical connection for him. I love the music that fills our house each day, even the discordant kind. Music was Calvin's introduction to math. It was his introduction to history when we talked about composers. It is geography when we learn about the origin of pieces, it is anthropology when we learn about its cultural connections.

Music is in everything we learn, or everything we learn is in music. It is joy, is life expressed, and we express a lot of it. It adds much to each day.

Calvin cam

It's not a hootinanny yet, not the kind my dad talks about from his longish hair days back in the sixties, but we all had a good time. And after all, I'm not sure my dad ever really had longish hair.

The soul of Sunday—family

A rare treat. Jon, who usually teaches (piano) at the institute on Sunday afternoons was with us all day today. We soaked up cuddles in the morning, snow play at noon, errands after lunch, games at tea time, live music during quiet time, and a coincidentally timed extended family dinner in the evening. Family, family, and more family, and still there is never enough. Every Sunday could be like this, please, although in the future I would add more sun.

Camp

Qwirkle

Spring bird houses to decorate our table

Charley Harper on the iPad

Slinky

Rain and sleet and snow, oh my

And oh bummer. It wasn't even so bad when we went out, bright and early, this morning to go to our library's monthly book sale (the one that Calvin and help set up all month long). It was raining, sure, and we wore warm sweaters under our rain coats, and Calvin wore his rain boots of course, but having not checked the weather report I had no idea that by the time we got home from library, book store, and grocery the rain would be ice, and then snow. I think we'll have to shovel tomorrow.

It's Saturday, and we like to surround ourselves with things that give us joy, so we hit up our book sale early (see Calvin reading under one of the sale tables) and followed that up with a stop at our Borders store.

We like Borders. At one time it was a local business, I even went to school with the Borders children, but clearly it is not that store any longer, and maybe it would be better if it was. We like Borders still because they alone carry our favorite coffee (Seattle's Best), because they give me a 25% off educator's discount on any items I use with Calvin, and because they are always joyfully willing to help me find obscure things, even if they have to order them from obscure places (like a full copy of the Parlement of Foules). Maybe they would do those things for us at Barnes and Noble, too (although I highly doubt it on the discount front), and our favorite book shopping is still at used book stores (we always go for used first when we can), but for whatever reason, and maybe it's the nostalgia token, Borders is our book store.

That's why their recent troubles leave us feeling sad. It's also why, when we see such appalling abuse of book shelf space as that pictured below, we feel deeply distressed. Compare the shelf space in the social studies section taken by Justin Bieber to that given to "world history, K-5" and ask yourself how Justin Bieber can really be that important. I know I did. And just to clarify, there were more of those purple books on a display front overhead. This is social studies today? I never did find the book on Egypt that I wanted.

So I guess it's not hard to figure out why Borders is struggling.

Then we came home, just before the sleet and snow started, had lunch, played with Legos, painted things, watched a video on hippos and rhinos, played some guitar, played some piano, had dinner, painted some more things, read some books, and went to bed. Or at least the (not so) little one went to bed.

There are more things I could say here, but I think one long paragraph is enough for a post. My bit on our new guitar, hootenannies, and my dad's longish hair years will have to wait for another day.