A Little Peek: Someone Sharpened A Crayon In The Pencil Sharpener

I read a hilarious blog post HERE by Jen Hatmaker, in which she is the self proclaimed "Worst End of School Mom Ever." It is a must read.

We are so there in the Kelley/Cheney house.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up: Emmabeth, AJ and Min are home schooled and participate in a local tutorial one day a week. Hopie is in preschool at home. Jr goes to the local middle school (they have an excellent special needs program). Gigi, Paye and John John go to private school close by. It's fun and not at all crazy to have 8 children with 5 different school schedules.

Homework has turned into a ridiculously complicated game of "Find the Only Pencil In The House" followed by "Cry Because You Couldn't." You would think that if you use a pencil EVERY DAY, you would be able to find one when you need it. It just isn't so! Maybe we're doing it wrong. Gigi, Paye and John John have built-in homework helpers in Emmabeth, Min and AJ, respectively. (Child labor builds character?) The older girls get wrapped up in the mad hunt for pencils and then painfully check over Word Boxes and listen to first grade reading. They rock.

While the littles were all at school, AJ was trying to find a pencil (yeah, good luck with that). She eventually DID find a pencil, a dull pencil, a pencil with no point, that was broken. So she did the mature thing, and instead of crying or stealing one, she went to sharpen it. Like any good homeschool family, an electric pencil sharpener has been a staple in our home for as long as I can remember. Old Faithful. And then this happened.

"Lindsey, someone sharpened a crayon in the pencil sharpener."
"Why?" (Brilliant question on my part)
"Umm, I don't know. It's just all junked up. Can you fix it?"
"Do you need a pencil right now?"
"Kind of…"
"I guess dig the crayon out of the pencil sharpener if you can…"

She did. And the pencil sharpener now sharpens pencils. And turns them purple, so it's kind of a win-win.

:-/

As AJ called down the hall with her fantastic headline, I just laughed. Because I think that that one sentence sums up our lives better than anything I have heard. Sure, I would have loved for it to be something cool like "Live together, die alone" or "And they lived happily ever after" but it just isn't. It's "Someone sharpened a crayon in the pencil sharpener."


Love.