This week

kicked my bum.
Lemme preface this by saying: This start to the school year has been our *best* start in YEARS. My rough routine is working like a charm, the littles are ahead in every subject & i find myself actually looking forward to each school day - adding in the little joys that are just gravy on top of a nicely balanced workload.
But this week - i forgot *why* we try to get ahead. It's not to *be* ahead, necessarily - it's so that when weeks kick our bum... we have room to kick back. i know exactly how this week happened...
Little things have sort of been building up...
& then we have had injuries & disruptions...
School on Monday - despite our birthday girl,
Day off on Tuesday because of our medicated girl,
School on Wednesday - finding our footing again,
Day off on Thursday because of our mid morning doctor's appointment deep in the North West of the city...
& so last night, the littles asked, "Are we gonna school on Friday since we missed so much this week?"
& part of my panicky heart wanted to scream, "YES!! We're gonna hit those books HARD!"
But then, i realised that even on our 'off' days... schooling was happening.
Hadn't we all snuck out to the backyard to enjoy some unexpectedly sunshiny yellow, orange splendorous beauty - while i read aloud to them?
Cai got alone time to work on her violin,
Sloanie got into the thick of a new novel,
Peyton did a science experiment to create a cloud & showed the littlest ones,
& even though i know that learning happens - maybe even better - in unstructured weeks like this one...
i sometimes find it hard to accept that things didn't go as planned.
& so i took a deep breath & said, "Nope. No school on Friday. We're gonna take the day to regroup - catch up where we need to & snuggle babies."
& that's just what i'm gonna do.