Worth It

For the last couple of days I have really let go.  Let go of all my expectations.  Let go of the planners and the workbooks.  Let go of the schedules, the time lines, the daily goals.  And in letting go, I have given myself the incredible feeling of... not holding on.

It is terrifying.  It is liberating.  It is at once thrilling and horrible.  I feel as though I have just jumped out of an airplane, something that goes against a lifetime of hoping I never have to do such a thing. 

Yesterday my children did almost nothing.  Well, to clarify, they did almost no school work.  It was the day after Halloween.  They were gorging themselves on candy and coming down from the high that is one of our favorite days of the year.  I was exhausted from our annual Halloween extravaganza, not to mention trick-or-treating and post-party cleanup.  We all needed a day to unwind.

I think the most productive thing the children did all day was watch an episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy.  At least, that is, until somewhere around 10:00pm.  That's when my husband and daughter drifted off into dreamland, I retreated to the office to work on my NaNoWriMo novel, and my son sat in his bed and read. By the time I shut off the lights downstairs and locked the doors, he was fast asleep (thank God, I think it was 2:00am), and had read for at least three hours straight.  He finished one book and started another.

Today the neighborhood children were off of school for election day.  (The public elementary is our local polling place.)  My kids wanted the day off, too.  Cady started her morning painting a new ballerina portrait on canvass.  When Asher got up we went around the corner to a friends' to trade candy.  Well, the kids traded candy and the moms traded conversation and coffee.

On our way home Cady ran into another friend who followed us the rest of the way to our door, and ended up staying the afternoon.  Then came another of my daughter's friends and her brother, who entertained Asher for a couple of hours.

After a visit from my grandmother, aunt and cousin, the evening was coming quickly to a close.  We had not done math.  We did not have silent reading, grammar, or spelling.  We didn't even cook or bake together.  At eight o'clock pm, we retreated to the basement to watch two episodes of MythBusters.  I thought at that point that our day was a bust!

Who would have thought our most productive hours would be from ten until midnight?

As our usual routing dictates, we all hunkered down in our jammies in our meditation-room-come-reading-nook with our books.  Asher, however, chose to work on his NaNoWriMo novel on the laptop.  Cady was tired.  But as she lay curled under the blankets, she asked why she, too couldn't work on her novel?

With the raise of an eyebrow, I told her she could, but she would have to go downstairs and get her own notebook as I was right in the middle of my chapter.  (I am reading an amazing memoir called "This Is Not The Story You Think It Is..." by Laura Munson.  Let's call it inspiration, okay?)  She braved the dark, silent downstairs, returning with her notebook and a pencil.  Then she began to write.

Daddy fell asleep on the couch, eventually retreating to the comfort of his own bed.  My little novelists burned the midnight oil.  At 12:13am, when pencils dropped and keys quieted, my son had compiled 977words... my daughter, four-hundred twenty-eight. 

Asher even incorporated the web site's recommended plot twist in an incredibly funny and creative method, through a literary irony that I'm sure he's read many times... his main character addressed the narrator and let the reader know that HE knew he was in a book.  It was genius!

I'm pleased with my day after all, even though it's 12:41am and I have only written one tenth of my novel word count for today.  I allowed my children to reach their goals, to be proud of what they had accomplished.  It's worth it. 

And when I wake from a short slumber, at least an hour before the kids so I can get in an extra writing stint before our Science Center field trip, I will still think it's worth it. 

A large cup of coffee will surely help me temporarily forget the high price of lost sleep... at least until the caffeine crash!