background:

my daughter naturally wakes up at the crack of dawn. She says she likes to watch the sunrise. Bless her sweet little heart. There is beauty in the sunrise that’s for sure. But since we moved out of the barn where I had to be up and feeding at sunrise into the barn where I’m now the boss- and THIS boss says feeding time is at 8:00, I think the sun can rise ok without my supervision. Anyways, she likes to be up. She also likes work. She likes “assignments”. She likes worksheets. Sometimes I wonder about her. It’s so funny. We life-school as I like to call it. Barn-school. Un-school. I don’t care for worksheets and curriculum-type schooling at all. I guess when you don’t force stuff, you get kids that love to learn. Maybe I’m just lucky, but she literally asks me for this stuff.

So I oblige and compromise. I give her morning work that she can complete on her own while she watches the sunrise and I get a few more zzzs. Oh boy, that makes me sound lazy. Really, she’s just a way over-achiever.

This winter has been unseasonably warm. We haven’t had snow yet. Crazy. She’s been bummed. She REALLY REALLY wanted a white Christmas. She’s been waiting. And doing snow dances. It rained all evening. In bed last night she told me that she “believed”. On my way to bed last night I peeked out and saw it was finally snowing. I walked back out to the dining table and swiped away her “silly” assignments, replacing it with this.

We all need more life assignments I do believe.