Don't know what it is about sharpening the pencils that my kids don't like - they go on and on and on writing with the trace of lead that we can hardly see.Mostly I would do it to make some "food" for my peacock feathers that we "grew" inside our text books. We (kids) had this crazy love for peacock feathers and believed it would grow feeding on pencil shavings... Rarely a feather would split up, taking us to new heights of joy that our treatment worked!
We also believed we can make erasers with pencil shavings - following a certain recipe with tree amber and what not! No, I never got close to collecting the "ingredients" to actually try the recipe.
Oh! I must tell you this, once I poked Papa's leg with a sharp pencil that a drop of blood seeped out. I was horror stricken! Not because Papa was hurt, but because Papa had blood! Till that point in life I was under the assumption men were made of steel and didn't have blood or wouldn't feel the pain...
Now, getting back to sharpening the pencils, I have tried different lures to get a bunch of pencils sharpened by my kids. Nothing has worked so far.
Recently I was in the school for parent teacher meeting and I saw that Joshua's pencils were all blunt. Just to surprise him I sharpened one pencil for him and kept it at his desk with a note, "Mommy loves you!" The next day he was so elated that I had sharpened his pencil and Sharon was upset I didn't do hers.
Sometimes I would gather plenty of pencils around the house and dedicate half an hour or so to sharpen them. Within minutes it will all vanish as children rush to claim them. So it is really not the sharpened pencils they dislike, it is the sharpening they do...
I am thinking of getting some peacock feathers and instilling the idea of feeding them on a regular basis with pencil shavings. May be that will do the trick...
Posts
12 comments:
Interesting post. There are two kinds of sharpeners. Electric and Manual. I am sure you have electric at home. It takes only less than 10 seconds. Don't know why your kids don't want to use.
Exactly that is what I am trying to figure out as well @SG!
Interesting and I can relate to sharpening the pencils, preserving peacock feathers and their feeding stories! :) Yes, I too was part of this eclectic story saga as a child! :)
However, I could see my nephews and nieces enjoying sharpening their pencils too much as though they are intent to shrink them to their feet! When I asked them their reason for doing this, they would say,"We enjoy it!" :)
PS: I liked your reaction as a child when you saw the drop of blood oozing out of your Papa's feet! You had thought he was made of steel, uh? :) A touching twist, indeed! :)
it seems you are very patient mother...Spending half an hr or so just to sharpen pencils for your kids...Lovely...
nice...I too always had sharpened pencils, and liked to have all the pencil shavings as a string, never allowing them to break :)
Mohan, Bhawna, Mangala: Appreciate your comments. Haven't checked out your blogs in a long time. Will do so today. Hope all is well at your end.
I love this! I loved the big manual pencil sharpeners they used to have at school, but at home I always had blunt pencils because I could never find my little sharpener!
Makes me nostalgic.
We never had pencil sharpeners,it was dangerous to use blades to sharpen,and we always needed help.We used to believe that the pea cock feathers delivered baby feathers!Most of us had the feathers safe with in book pages.
I loved pencils. Reminded me of my school/college days. I used to have different color pencils and multiple colors in one paragraph to keep the focus.
I still like to write with pencil but....may be handwriting post will be in pencil...let us see when I come back.
The post took me on a nostalgic ride to boyhood - with the innumerable shaving blades, innumerable rusty pencil sharpeners and innumerable cuts on the fingers by the shaving blades! It was a craft I never could master; I always had my sisters to do the job for me. Then there was this 'Venus' Pencils! Oh, the elite of elites! I still remember the metal pencil box which had a picture of the statue of Venus De Milo ( armless and full-breasted - I remember I used to feel curiously uncomfortable looking at it). The Venus pencils belonged to my elder sisters who so pompously said that the special pencils are for 'drawing the records'.
Thanks for reminding me all that! :)
Hello! I'm from Malaysia and used to feed pencil shavings to feathers :-P Seems like it used to be an international "hobby"! Lol :-)
That is interesting! Thank you for sharing Daphne!
Post a Comment