Homeschool Holdout

Just as in everyday life, my child often wants to try and wield his tiny amount of power to see if he has what it takes to usurp my throne. If he only knew what my crown would mean for him - to be the queen around my house is an endless parade of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dirty floors, and dirty hand prints on the walls. But I digress.

During the homeschool day, he has decided to show his "authority" by refusing to get a new pencil for math class. Never mind we have a bucket of new and freshly sharpened pencils of every imaginable design and color, enough pencils to last him seven more years through high school graduation.

This pencil nub is what is somehow getting him through 20 math problems every day. It is now so short, the pencil grip is longer than the actual pencil and has to be removed when he occasionally attempts to sharpen it.

I have asked, cajoled, begged, and excitedly showed him all the pencils available. A rainbow one? A Halloween one? A Christmas one?

"No," he says. "This is my lucky pencil."

I pointed out that a lucky pencil would enable him to make a "100/A" on all his daily math worksheets and tests. And that is just not the case.

So I had to call in the big guns for this assignment. I asked Mr. Country Belle to "gift" my son with a snazzy mechanical pencil like the one he uses in his "real engineering job."

I pretended not to care.

The little booger accepted the pencil and started using it in math class the very next day.

I was not allowed to touch it.

I so did not care. I promised never to touch it.

(I won).

Speaking of the crazy things to go on during the homeschool day, I'll leave you with one more.

I don't have one thing to say about this.

Have a happy holiday week!

Love,

TCB