Yes, I did teach yoga for nearly 8 years and have been a practitioner many, many more than that... But, that's not the kind of flexibility I am talking about today.
As parents, we know that the best-laid plans sometimes have to go by the way side. Someone gets sick, the weather doesn't cooperate, someone makes a few bad choices and loses the privilege of experiencing whatever we planned, etc. That is why I typically go in to my ABC summer plans with several "Plan B"s in place.
Those who followed our adventures this summer know that I really went out on a limb (for me, anyway) and changed the way we celebrated the letters. I still couldn't do the alphabet out of order (I just wouldn't be able to sleep at night...), but I did decide that we'd go through the entire alphabet not once, not twice, but THREE times in one summer! The kids loved the idea, and in implementation, they still loved it. Somehow, it made the summer seem longer to them.
At the end of our summer, though, we had to be even more flexible than ever planned. I had been waiting excitedly all summer long for our final O activity: going to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry), which is supposed to amazing. I had on the calendar that my oldest had cross country practice late that afternoon and 6th grade orientation, which I assumed would be in the evening since parents were highly encouraged (i.e. expected) to attend. About a week before that date, I got an email with details about said orientation. It was scheduled from 1:30-4:30 in the afternoon. As for cross country, practice was moved to mid-morning. There was a whole day shot. No going to OMSI, after all.
A couple days after that informative email, my husband's dear grandma Helen passed away. When his other grandma, Violetta, left us in March, he went back to IA for the funeral and only took our oldest. Violetta had suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, and he was the only one of our children who had memories of her before that. Since we were all very close to Helen, we reassured the younger two back in March that when her time came, we'd all travel back to celebrate her life. In July when we road tripped back to IA, we visited Helen and she showed us all around her new care facility. It was beautiful, and she was in great spirits that day. That's why we were surprised when just over a month later, she was gone. We promptly decided to purchase plane tickets and head back.
That meant leaving the day after L's 6th grade orientation (Whew! So glad he didn't miss that!). Which, in turn, meant that we'd be missing not only the letter O, but also letters P-V. Because our Q activity was something that I absolutely did not want to miss, we included it on our N day earlier that week (it was finding the statue of Ramona Quimby in Portland). As for the other letters, I let go control and told the kiddos that we were skipping the final round of them and we'd pick up with W when we returned. They were a little reluctant to give it up and pointed out that we'd be packing ourselves into a plane on P day. Ahhh, they are related to me. ;)
We ended the alphabet as planned after we returned three days before school started. It was very bittersweet to end our final blow-out ABC summer, but our youngest is now officially a Kindergartner. Not sure how we got here, but here we are. I have the next couple of summers loosely planned, but my children are already asking what we'll do after that. We'll just have to remain flexible and see, I guess!
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