Why my homeschooling plans are useless

I have such great plans laid out every year. And every year, I ditch them as soon as we start. Why? This is what happens...

It's morning...I have grand plans to get 9yo to do some math today and make up for the last few weeks days that we have not gotten to it. Off I go to look for her. She is sewing! Actually, it is more like needlepoint with thread. She has designed her own piece, and although the going is slow it looks nice so far. She is happy! (this would NOT be the case if we were doing math) She is productive! She is learning a helpful life skill and working on her fine motor needs at the same time! Am I going to interrupt this? No way! I'll get to it later, I think. But later, the baby is screaming (we are in the colic stages right now, luckily it is all afternoon instead of all night), the laundry is honking at me to be hung up, my children need to be fed (the nerve!), etc.

It is like this every day. Yesterday I found her reading a Narnia Chronicles book. Reading! My daughter! A difficult book with small print! Again, I let her be. She spent two full days doing nothing but reading that book.

She really works best this way. I love to see her engaged and happy, too, instead of tantrumming over math or annoying her sisters. Because the plans are designed for her, with her 2nd grade sister along for the ride, when 9yo doesn't do them, I don't move on with just the 2nd grader, who is advanced for her age anyway. Is it lazy of me to not want to go over it all twice, if and when the 4th grader decides now is the time to get with MY program? LOL

Well, I'm off to see if they are still being *productive*. Something tells me (the catfighting coming from downstairs, perhaps?) that they are not. Math pages, here we come! ;-)