We have all these great plans...

...and then life happens. My goodness, does it happen. We have plans and ideas and schedules and lists. We have homeschool group school days, and we have curriculum to follow, and we have play dates and projects, and children to get from point A to point B and back again. But we also have extended family whom we may want to visit and help out when there's a need, and we have nasty little germs that can cause fevers making their way into our house, and we have all sorts of other things mixing up our days like little girls who for whatever reason need some extra cuddle time or soon-to-be big girls with life lessons to be learned, and teeny little girls with a persistent little wish to be potty trained right away. And so, what happens is: we must choose to put aside lists and schedules (even though this really gets to me if I let it....like a nagging little voice in my head telling me that I need to follow my plans, I really, really need to....), or we push our kids to check off everything we thought we would do at a certain time, meanwhile, they don't get what they need, what is really good for their little hearts. It's a tough thing sometimes, to live in the world of Plan B, and tougher still for me to go into the crazy unknown of Plan C, but when I force myself to take a deep breath, evaluate our current situation, and move on to a new plan, then usually, not always, but usually, everyone wins around here. We see more smiles, more learning, and more growth in our relationships. And that is a little piece of greatness for our family.

So this week we checked off our assignments on our lesson plan, but not all of our songs, and not all of our science experiments. We'll have fun revisiting some of those things later. We added an extra history project in, something that interests my Kindergarten student. It's not part of the curriculum package we purchased, but goodness, she is learning from it like crazy. We had a couple school days, after a spur of the moment road trip, at the kids' great-grandmother's house, sitting in her kitchen with cups of spiced tea and workbooks. And we had some of our lessons on the couch one day, while my Kindergarten girl sat next to me on one side, a piano bench pulled up in front of her for her worksheets and supplies, while my older preschooler cuddled up to my other side, sick with a fever. My Kindergarten girl practiced reading (and using a strong, clear voice) by sitting on a stool in the bathroom, reading a picture book to my two year-old who was sitting on the potty, trying to prove she is done with diapers. We did have school with our friends in our homeschool group twice this last week, and we did have our organized classroom time at home a few times this week, too, but when it didn't happen, we didn't panic. We made it work. I am so proud of my little ones for being adaptable when the time is right for adapting. They are learning to work as a team, and that makes me happy, while being so good for them.

And now as we get back to our routine and to our little homeschool classroom, we are thankful for that space and for the comfort and stability we find there. We love our little blackboard, especially the colored chalk, goodness my kid loves the colored chalk. We are using the board more now to display her current history project and also her reading accomplishments. She just loves checking off her accomplishments and then seeing them up on the board every day. And I bet she will love that even more come Monday, after having a break from the lists and checks. There's nothing like a break from something to give you a renewed excitement for it when it is time to go back to work.

So we are thankful for the last few weeks. God is taking good care of us. We have survived the flu with hardly any symptoms, other than a fever. And while we are trying our best to be a house that shares, we are so thankful to say we haven't been sharing viruses with each other at this point. Praise God!