Sharpen Up or Flip Out

        For the past few weeks, my husband’s back has been disagreeable. He has been in much pain and walking causes him much more pain. Stairs are very painful so we put our extra bed downstairs for him.

        Anyway, last night I drove him up to the school to prepare for at least a couple more days of having a substitute. He is really concerned about those kids “getting behind.” While we were there, Brian put us to work on pencils. He handed me a whole box of (mostly sharpened, in my humble opinion) pencils to be sharpened and laid in the box all facing the same way. I mean, what good teacher could let a first grader waste time on a substitute day sharpening a pencil? And they must all face the same way because . . . you don’t want a first grader poked with a pencil first thing in the morning. According to Brian, it makes them cry and that’s not how anyone wants to start his day. Samuel helped with this. New pencils first got pre-sharpened in the old pencil sharpener before being re-sharpened in the new pencil sharpener.

        Then, we added erasers to the eraser bin by taking a utility knife and cutting them into thirds. (Don’t worry parent. If you think buying 80 pencils for the school year was a little much, he makes up for it in erasers. And besides, we usually still buy your kids a few pencils. It might be obsessive sharpening – I don’t know.) Finally, we added notebook paper (3 packs of it) to his paper bin. No notebooks – the little papers left over when you rip it out really annoy him. Did I mention he’s the most laid back guy I know?

        Anyway, we get home and I get a little angry with my kids teacher. I mean, this teacher’s major accomplishment of the day was to get a memory foam layer added to her husband’s bed. She wasn’t even sure where all her students’ books were (let alone pencils) since several had left the classroom yesterday with her children when she “took the day off” to take her husband to the doctor.

        After I get over it and cry on my husband’s shoulder, I take a little time to relocate all the students’ books (except for one) and all teacher’s editions (the things a mother has to do).  As I am going up to bed, Brian asks, “Do you have your pencils sharpened for tomorrow?”

        “I would have,” I said, “but I couldn’t find them.”

        “There’s a bunch of them over their on the table by the pencil sharpener.”

        He would know – Mr. I’ve Been Lying in Bed for Over Three Weeks.

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        This morning I was so excited to get up, I did a front flip first thing. I’m athletic like that you know. I was voted “Most Likely to Succeed” but I should have been voted “Most Athletic.”

        So the alarm sounds this morning, and when I reached to turn it off – I missed. I landed mostly on the back of my head with my body above me caught by the wall. I let out a little scream and hoped Brian would not race up the stairs concerned about me. I tried to figure out how to get myself out of this awkward position without screaming for help. I remind myself that I’ll be 36 next week, not 63. As I’m getting up, I’m thinking, “The kids must have moved that nightstand,” but once I’m all the way up I have to admit that everything was in the right place except for me. . .(well, and the pencils and about a thousand other things).

        Lord, my prayer to you today is that you make Brian’s back better really quick, “I really need him to man the alarm clock.”**

* I wrote this the first week of September.  Brian is doing much better. Praise God!

**We took a walk together tonight and he’s been manning the alarm clock for several weeks. I have no excuse for why my pencil cup is again. . .EMPTY. But alas, I have the weekend to gather and sharpen pencils. J

A Day to Remember

We are officially on fall break! Hallelujah!

In December of last year, a brother in the LORD asked me what my plans were for 2011. I sweetly-as-I-could  said “no big plans so far.” In my head I was thinking, “All I have planned so far is stupid doctor’s appointments.” (I can usually have more sophisticated thoughts but that wasn’t long after we lost Klarissa and I just didn’t feel like it.) He went on to talk about how his goal was to bless his kids during the year – he used the words “to make their ceiling his floor.” Maybe that phrasing is common in some circles but it was new to me.

I am so tired of doctor’s appointments. I’ll be escorting two to the doctor this week. Maybe it will be. . .fun?

So anyway, Saturday, I decided to make it a bless-the-kids day. Dad was away and I didn’t want to do anything spectacular, so we spent most of the day hanging out at the house and having some much needed downtime. It was so fun. When they came to tell me their stories, I sat and listened. (As a homeschooling mom, I can’t always do that. As much as they love school, they’d rather tell a story than do math any day or hour! LOL!)

Isaac got some time with the camera and the piano. He also found the soldering iron and finished his speaker project in the shop. He took another beautiful flower picture and I sat and marveled at the variety of his interests and wondered what plans God has for him.

I couldn’t think of any projects at home Hannah wanted to do, so we went to a yard sale with my only motive as blessing Hannah. She scored with a $1 sweater she liked that fit over her cast! I found a wall hanging, two cheap benches for my porch and a jacket for Isaac. It ended up blessing me greatly.

We then stopped and bought a mum. I got the color the girls wanted. I resisted the urge to tell them it was the color of throw-up. LOL! (I really need to work on the language in my head!) We also got some super-cheap-but-soon-to-be-frozen flowers that we planted. Now that the mums and flowers are planted, I know we got the perfect colors.

Samuel spent some time with Spinach and Zucchini, his two slithery snake friends. (Lettuce got away in the shop.) I called him to get the grasshopper that came in with my watering can, and he said, “Hi there, Mr. Grasshopper, you’re about to food for my snake.” He also hung several pictures for me, one for himself, sanded a bed for me, and sanded down a very nice walking stick. That boy is a go-getter.

Faith got to finish her apple project for school. It was originally supposed to be a wreath decorated with dehydrated apples, but she had hinted that it would be neat to make it into an edible necklace. She divided them into three necklaces so she could share J

I played a little baseball with Justin and read him a few books. At this age, I start to marvel at how much they’ve learned in just a few short years. Last week’s speech evaluation showed 53 speech errors and a very low percentile ranking. I’ve already done this long road once, and it’s a little daunting to be doing it all over again. It was nice to pause and reflect and see how far we’ve come.

Samuel made a treasure hunt and gave Justin his duck call. Justin’s been quacking with it for a few days, but now it’s officially his. He had lots of fun hiding and waiting for me to ask, “Where’s that duck? I think I hear a duck!”

And of course, there was a lot of talking and playing and laundry in between. Everyone had a good day.

When Daddy got home, we had to convince him we missed him.

Now, how to make those two doctor appointments this week feel like a blessing. . . .hmmm . . . .