Plan ahead, but always in pencil

The 4th of July is now behind us and in our house that means that the upcoming school year is nearly upon us. I love this time of year! A blank planner in front of me, the kids are all excited about “back to school” shopping (which for us is less about clothes and more about pencils & notebooks & glue sticks) and we are all looking forward to getting back into a routine. We definitely enjoy the relaxed days of summer, but truth be told, we really seem to do better when we have some sort of schedule or routine. Also, I’m a planner. I like to know what’s coming and I love a good checklist…I’ve even been known to add things to the checklist after the fact, just to check another item off the checklist! (I know I can’t be alone in this). At times I do find myself laughing about it all though because as much as I love to plan, I am also very willing to move something over to the next day…or week, if it doesn’t get checked off when it’s supposed to.

As I sat down this afternoon with my brand new planner just waiting to be filled with amazing lessons and creative learning opportunities, I was taken back to a last year when I was doing the same thing only to have to reschedule our first day of school not once, not twice, but three times. At the beginning of July, I knew I wanted to have everything planned out for the first day of school, well before we left on a vacation that we had been planning for a very long time! I didn’t want to have to worry about anything while we spent two glorious weeks in Alaska with family AND out of the heat & humidity of the South. It really was the trip of a lifetime and because I had planned ahead, I was able to truly enjoy our time and we were ready to hit the ground running once we arrived home from our trip. We flew home on the red-eye…side note: I don’t think one can truly grasp the enormity of our great country until you fly from one tip to the complete opposite tip with three children in tow. When we got home and were caught up on our sleep, the eve of the first day of school arrived. I spent a good bit of time that evening setting up our playroom to be our classroom (something I try to surprise the kids with each year). I had the first few weeks all planned out and was already very proud of how productive we were obviously going to be!

The first day of school was a success! Everyone was so excited to begin the new school year, all set with brand new books, pencils and crayons (there’s nothing like a brand new box of crayons no matter how old you are!). Then it happened. That night a stomach bug hit our house. We (really, just I) tried to power through but who was I kidding, the first week of school was a bust & would have to be rescheduled.

Once everyone seemed to be recovered, we were TWO weeks behind our original start date. No problem. We did a First Day of School, Take 2. It was also a success. We were ALL so excited to get back to it, we plowed through our first day activities and then some. Everyone went to bed that evening feeling very accomplished. The very. next. day. My middle kid came downstairs complaining that he wasn’t feeling well. I’m not kidding. He had a fever that turned out to be strep AND flu. I was ready to scrap the entire year at that point and we were only the 3rd week in!

Well, the poor kid ended up missing a good bit of those next two weeks of school (almost four in all). He managed to do some stuff while stuck in bed but he was feeling so rotten that I didn’t force it. My oldest did continue on with her first few weeks of 7th grade but it just wasn’t the same. She missed her brother and classmate! Not to mention that it took the efforts of both her and me to keep the (then) 4 year old busy and out of her favorite buddy’s germ-filled room.

If you’re tracking with me, this would be our third attempt at starting the school year. We ended up having to reschedule his first day one more time because his flu turned into pneumonia (I seriously couldn’t make this stuff up!). So, once he recovered from THAT, we really did do a literal First Day of School, Take 4! That one stuck. We were able to continue on from there; a school year complete with field trips, sports, art class and piano lessons…until mid March when everyone, along with us, had their worlds turned upside down by Covid-19.

In hind sight, I guess the start of our 2019-2020 school year was just the beginning of a year that will forever and always be known as the year of quarantine. But what it taught me was to always plan in pencil and to be flexible with those plans. Don’t hold too tightly to the expectations of how the school year should look. Trust that when God calls you to this, wherever you are is right where you need to be whether it’s studying Algebra, sounding out the same word over & over until she gets it, or sitting up with a sick kid through the night.

There was a bright side to all of this…a reminder that we really are doing what’s best for our family. You see, in all honesty, my son would never have been able to catch up with the rest of the class had he been enrolled in a traditional school classroom, but because of the nature of homeschooling, he was never actually “behind”. He just picked up where he left off after each bout of illness and never really missed a beat.

So as I get ready to fill up my beautifully blank planner with all the amazing learning opportunities that this year will hold, I will remember to do so in pencil. And not only that, but when plans change, and they will, I will try my best to just go with it, be flexible and trust the One who called me to this crazy adventure. I have a feeling this year will require even a bit more of that than last year did!