Challenge #1: Ornery Children

My mom and I were having a great conversation while eating our sub sandwiches this afternoon. Roughly 15 minutes later it dawned on me that my house was awfully quiet. Too quiet. Dangerously quiet for having a five year old and a two year old running around. I put up the dishes, threw away the trash, and walked down the hall.

"Emma? Gracie?" I asked as I walked into Gracie's doorway. I gasped.

"Oh, no!" I yelped. Post it notes were all over Gracie's room and Emma had a pencil from my scrapbook table. I ran into my scrapbook room scared of what I would find. The laptop open....my surprise matchbook notebooks that I made for students...destroyed. My heart sank. I was so excited to have those as a surprise for Monday for those that started the Slice of Life challenge. I bent to my knees and picked up the scraps of paper. I realized I would be able to salvage two of the notebooks. I sighed. Well, at least one student from each class can get a notebook.

As I threw away the scraps of paper, I noticed my laptop looked dirty. "Emma Lynne, what did you do to this?" I asked somewhat loudly.

"What?" she replied.

I couldn't believe my laptop was covered in pencil markings. What will I do with her? I thought.

"You know...Emma didn't know those notebooks were special for your students," my Mom said.

"I know," I replied, "but that isn't what I am upset about. She knows better than to do that to the laptop."

I was able to clean up the laptop and I put Emma in a chair and talked with her about the laptop. I asked her if she was sorry and she patted herself on the back and said, "Yes, mommy, sorry."

Then I got the biggest Emma hug.