Non Linear Thinking: Shawn's little hobby

I'm into summer reruns right now at Nonlinear Thinking. And since my Shawn posts are some of my favorites I'm going to lead off with one of them.
And remember, if you haven't read it before then it's new to you!

I don't believe that I have ever mentioned Shawn's love of pencil sharpening.

He came by it quite early.

When he was in Elementary School, about the only behavioral problem his teachers ever had with him was his insistence on taking at least a good five minutes to sharpen his pencil.

And then to compound the problem.

He felt that his pencil needed sharpening at least a couple times a day.

His teachers quickly learned to use pencil sharpening as a reward for him.

He would be allowed sharpening time when he had finished whatever work he was being a bit stubborn about at the time.

It worked out really well. He did his work, he got to sharpen pencils.

As he moved through his older years of school, other inducements were discovered, by other teachers, but Shawn has never lost his love of sharpening pencils.

Now here on the Home Front, I have tried to always have some means of sharpening pencils. I don't use pencils a lot, but if I am going to use one I want it to be good and sharp.

For years, at our old house, we had a nice manual pencil sharpener.

The kind that you attach to a flat surface, stick your chosen pencil into the hole and turn the crank until you achieve the right sharpness. It had different sized holes that you could turn it to, and it did a nice adequate job of pencil sharpening.

As can be imagined, Shawn was quite fond of that sharpener.

And the Sorenson household never lacked for sharp pencils.

Eventually, that classic old sharpener, pretty much wore out.

A decision was made, mostly by me, to replace the old manual, with a nice new electric sharpener.

So I did.

Shawn was of course very interested in the new fangled sharpener. The only problem was that this sharpener made noise.

When he was younger, Shawn was very afraid of loud sudden noises.

Unless, of course, he was the one making them.

It was pretty hard for Shawn to cover his ears and sharpen pencils at the same time.

As a consequence, Shawn kind of gave up pencil sharpening for a while.

The thing with Shawn though, is IF he decides he wants to do something badly enough he will usually find a way to do it.

I'm not sure exactly when he did it, but he somehow decided that he wanted to sharpen pencils more than he wanted to cover his ears.

So after a few months, I would hear that new pencil sharpener start sharpening. If it went on longer than a minute or two, I knew that it was Shawn and not a sibling or husband who simply needed a sharp pencil.

Now to cut to the chase.

I'm not really sure what happened to that electric sharpener. I don't even remember if it made the move from our old house to our new one.

All I know is that for quite a while we didn't have a decent pencil sharpener.
My kids had mostly grown up and finished school. Shawn was the last to leave school, since special needs people can stay in school until they age out at 21.

For whatever reason, we had been making due with this little battery
powered clear plastic sharpener, you know those small little sharpeners that always are around for Back to School shopping, one of those.

I'm afraid that for Shawn that wimpy little sharpener was almost as bad as no sharpener at all.

So for a few years he was in a sharpening slump.

Around September, he started telling me that we needed a new pencil sharpener.

I'm pretty sure it was brought on by all those Back to School ads he kept looking through that came in the Sunday paper every week.

I guess he was suddenly reminded of how he had been missing out for so long.

I figured that I might as well go get a new sharpener.

So I did.

This might sound mean, but I bought it on a trip to Walmart, when Shawn was NOT with me.

I had my reasons.

Buying anything with Shawn around is frustrating.

First of all, he has a really hard time deciding just what it is he wants. And if there are more than two options it can take forever.

Plus, for some reason that I have never understood, he will always find the most expensive of whatever it is I am shopping for and insist on it. He will then have a fit if I don't get that one.

There are times when, even three days later, he is still angry that we didn't get the one HE wanted.

So, I went to the store without him and picked out a new sharpener without his in-put.

This is the best way to do these things.

When I come home from any kind of shopping, Shawn is always there looking through all of the bags to see if there is anything in them to interest him.

Kind of like his own little treasure hunt.

So when he went through the shopping bags and found the new pencil sharpener, he was as excited as if he had picked it out himself.

Instead of mad about it because I didn't get the one that he felt we needed.

So you see, I have worked out a pretty good system for Shawn shopping.

A few hours went by, I was downstairs in my living room reading.

All of a sudden I heard this loud electrical buzzing.

It just kept going and going.

What on earth is that?!?

I ran upstairs to see what was going on.

I don't know why I was surprised. It was Shawn of course.

Sharpening pencils.

Lots of pencils.

I enjoy buying school supplies so much that I have at least seven boxes of unopened, unsharpened, pencils.

Shawn had found them.

Well since that day, Shawn has managed to sharpen and resharpen at least half of our pencil supply.

I think he's pacing himself.

Now, when I am anywhere in the house and I hear that distinctive sound, I just smile.

And know that Shawn is happy, doing what he loves best.

Shawn has graciously agreed to let us watch the process.
Here he is about to stick the pencil (notice how sharp it already is) into his sharpener.