First, let me just tell you that I love my homeschool mom friends! If I didn't have someone to share our school "issues" with where they laugh and nod in complete agreement, I would probably think my children were special, and I mean "special."
So, you say, pick a pencil and please sit in your seat. Pick and pencil and stop sword fighting with it! Pick and pencil and do't draw on my kitchen table!!! Pick and pencil and stop fighting over the one your sister has!!! That's it, here is your pencil that mommy has chosen for you! and here is yours, no we are not trading, no I don't care if it was yours 6 weeks ago when you were drawing a picture to who knows who, this is your pencil for the day!!!!! (Aaaaahhhh, let's get started)
Ha! This is not even what my girlfriend and I were talking about, it's just the beginning!
The real drama at the kitchen table is once you have assigned them all their pencils, taught them a little math or phonics or whatever, given them an assignment.
One whines," I don't have an eraser on my pencil!"
"Well", I sweetly respond, "look where the eraser should be, who picked the eraser off?"
She looks down at her lap and I can barely hear "I did".
"Well, next time you feel you'd like to PICK off a brand new pencil's eraser, you will remember that you might NEED that eraser, won't you?" I ask, trying not to get angry again, since we have already had this conversation on the day I caught her doing the deed.
This pencil problem is fairly easy to fix as other times, we have a "favorite" pencil that has to do so much erasing work that there us no more eraser and it's no one's fault. So I bought 2 packs of 3 big gingerbread erasers back at Christmas time in the wonderful dollar spot at Target and they have a permanent place on the kitchen table. There is always one at hand.
Except.........
in the car, when we are trying to get some school done while mommy runs errands, which is where the above conversation took place, oiveh!
Pencils are a pain in my side in the life of homeschooling, really. You'd think we had a gazillion laying around, oh wait, we do! Too bad half of them (usually that half they want to use!) are the "pretty" pencils, the cheap pack of Valentine or Christmas pencils that you buy and let your child pass out to all their friends. These cheap pencils are terrible, you sharpen them to perfection, because you know they have to be just right, nice and pointy, sharpened EVENLY around all sides (or your child, at least mine, might flip her lid) and then they write with it for about 3 words and the stupid lead falls right out!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH! Yes, this drives my nuts!
You see, my sweet child is a little OCD, in comes my homeschool mom friends who have kids just like mine, (cool, we're not that special). So, she must have a nice sharp pencil, but naturally, she wants a particular one, usually the cheap one!
We've even tried the mechanical pencils, those are great to write with! Until she gets bored and starts clicking it and breaking it off in small mini-lead pieces while I explain long i and silent e to her sister!! And those suckers aren't cheap!
One day I will throw all the "bad" pencils away while my children are asleep and can't stop me and buy only #2 pencils (that is until the next holiday and they get a "goodie" bag with another cheap pencil..............
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