what happens to the plan

I always have a plan. I may in fact have several plans.  The making of the plans is not always related to the execution of the plan, but it is there as a starting point, the first step, a mark on the otherwise blank and daunting page.

Today's plan took several unexpected twists, and I consider it a major part of my job as a homeschooling facilitator to be able to shift gears dozens of times an hour in order to keep up with Now and Yes.  Yes is the most valuable part of our days, and you have to catch it when you can.  Last week's yes looked like letting go of every scrap of my plan because Ani was eyeballs deep into her book, which she started upon awaking and had finished - with several interruptions to play - by suppertime, all 284 pages, not that anyone's counting.  One of the reasons I'm writing about it is that it took me all day to get over myself and realize that she'd run a reading mile, while I sulked about the writing project I'd had to set aside.  She finished, glowing, and we ran outside to enjoy the last hour of daylight together, met up with our friend Sarah at the gardens and helped cover the gorgeous lettuces before the frost.  The moon was its slivery self, so dainty and perfect, and Ani started to rhapsodize, as she does, and ended up coming home to start a new daily journal, in which she writes to the moon. Brilliant. So much better than what I was going to try and coax her into earlier in the day.  Yes.

Today looked like two girls sleeping in.  It looked like reading Ella Enchanted aloud over the breakfast Eliza made for us all.  It was clear when we finished and the sun was screaming come play with me! that going outside was maybe a better idea than piano practice and a math lesson, so once the kid laundry got in, the girls went outside, refit helmets, pumped up a tire, and were off on a bike ride together.  They came home with baskets full of pruned branches that they were given by a neighbor trimming up their trees.

Eventually inside to change over the laundry, happily (!!) practice piano, do some math together, and eat lunch while listening to poetry -  River of Words about William Carlos Williams - and to try to imitate his style in This Is Just To Say. 

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

William Carlos Williams

Here are Eliza's imitation poems:

This is just to say

I have taken 

my helmet off 

once or twice 

when on another road.

You probably should scold me.

Forgive me.

I felt so free

and so mischievous.

This is just to say

I have picked

too many dandelions

that went bad 

right away.

You probably would have liked it better 

if I had left them in the ground.

Forgive me.

They were so yellow

and there were so many.

I cannot tell you how much I love these poems, and how beautiful her grin was as she read them to me.  I'll have to get Ani's permission to share hers on another day, but let's just say that the idea was embraced, and we had so much fun sharing what we came up with. Yes.

So what if the dishes kept piling up.  (They did. I don't know much about the reproductive habits of kitchen things, but really, if they keep this up we're going to have to move.) Today we rode bikes, read chapters, wrote poetry, and gathered flowers to strew all over the house. That's all worth some diversion from the plan.