Celebrate!

As an unschooly family our life rolls along all year without holidays or first days of classes and while I appreciate how it means we value the living and learning we do each day I think that it can lead us towards taking for granted the life we have. There is no anticipation for and celebration of summer holidays, no exciting newness in September.

Today, a local homeschool support group called Homebased Learning Society of Alberta put on the annual First Day Not Back To School Picnic. It's a really fun tradition where all sorts of homeschooling families gather at Emily Murphy Park to eat, play, and visit. It's a day where we celebrate the coming year of not sending our kids back to school, on the very day when most families in the city are celebrating sending their kids to their first day of school.

Today informally kicks off the school year for us and I'm taking this opportunity to celebrate the things to come.

I'm celebrating all the mornings I'll get to snuggle on the couch with my kids and eat a home cooked breakfast with them. I'm celebrating the days we'll get up early to get as much time out of our day as possible, and the days we'll sleep in to rest and recover.

I'm celebrating the afternoons we'll spend at the science center, art classes, playgrounds, music classes, friend's houses and forests. I'm also celebrating the afternoons we'll watch Discovery Channel, play board games, create artwork, and bake cookies.

I'm celebrating the evenings we'll spend at Beavers, in the back yard, watching movies, and playing soccer. I'm celebrating the nights the kids will fall in bed exhausted and the times they'll have so much to say that they just won't be able to let the day go.

I'm celebrating the tiny moments that I know I'll witness: light bulbs going off, passions sparking, relationships deepening, and maturity growing. I'm also celebrating the big moments to come: leaps in independence, growth spurts, and the hitting of strides.

I'm excited about the coming year and all the things I don't even know are coming our way yet. This life that I get to live with these children of mine is a great one.