Not all my posts have a purpose other than for me to write something but this one does. The purpose of this post is to remind me to not take my kids school supply shopping! So to my future self I say, “Leave the kids home to fight in peace without you. Go late at night when ‘normal’ shopping hours are long gone. And buy yourself a Kit Kat for a job well done afterwards.”
I had a brief visit to the ‘Panic Phase’ of summer this week. Next week is AUGUST! Yikes! It seems like once August gets here summer starts to get run over with activities and school stuff starting back up. I hadn’t registered the kids for school so I did that and the school supply lists where attached to registration so after three days of being stuck at home because Alli was sick, we decided to make going school supply shopping our first outing when she felt better. We went through all the stuff they brought home to see what they already had. Which was not a lot.
Emilee didn’t have anything except a backpack she has used for two years and Allison used for two before that so it was pretty sad looking so we ended chucking it, so she had no supplies to start.
Allison decided she would donate her supplies to ‘new kids’ for next year. I asked her what that meant because they do have donations at the end of the year that takes unwanted school supplies and will find ways to reuse almost anything-recover notebooks, take the middle of dried out markers out and make jump ropes with them, they even remelt crayons and make new ones from them and give them to kids that need them. It is pretty awesome. I have told my kids that if they want to donate their notebooks and crayons, markers and things like that they can, but to bring home scissors and head phones and rulers-things they will need again for the next several years. So when I asked Allison where all her stuff was she said she donated it. I asked her what exactly she put in the box and she said she didn’t put anything in a box she left EVERYTHING in her classroom for the ‘new second graders’ except for her clip board which she doesn’t really like anymore and wants a new one. I try and think that it was a sweet gesture but honestly it was more likely motivated by laziness. So besides her backpack zero supplies for Alli to start except for the clip board which I told her she can use unless she wants spend her own money on a new one. Which got a big eye roll from her.
Matthew had all the notebooks I bought last year with his name and a subject written across the cover in giant permanent marker and then…not a single page used. He had scissors and a protractor and his backpack.
Not as big of a dent in the shopping list as I hoped for. I am pretty sure I spent over a hundred dollars on supplies last year and all we have to show for it is three notebooks, a protractor and a pair of scissors. I remind them all we are only getting what is on the list and be good listeners and help me check stuff off the list as we find it so we don’t forget anything, they all agree and we hop in the car excited about our school supply shopping adventure. I always get excited about school supply shopping and look forward to it. The preparer/organizer gets to come out in me and imagine how fun it is to go and find new folders and pencils and come home and organize it-sounds like fun right!?
About five seconds after we walk into the store Allison has already stormed off mumbling about some injustice she has endured and Emilee has already made the rounds and has an armful of things she ‘needs’ for school that have nothing to do with school. Plus the craziness of the hundred other people with their kids all doing the same thing squeezing into the same four aisles that look like they have been ransacked three times over. Then the arguing of who is copying who, who saw it first, who gets to put it in the cart, who needs a new this or a new that. Convincing them if they bring a 24 pack of crayons because the 16 pack is gone they will not be kicked out of school. Then crying over having to settle for the cheap boring regular pencils instead of the perfect $10 glitter glow in the dark forever sharp pencil. I got another eye roll when I said that even if the pencil wrote by itself and sang a song I wouldn’t spend $10 on it. Even Matthew who is usually fine, thought he was being hilarious by grabbing something ridiculous and saying “Mom I need this” ten times was driving me crazy. Over an hour and $150 later and no Kit Kat because “No one behaved well enough to earn a treat!” I was irritated and mad walking out to the car, reliving the memory of myself saying last year (and every year before that), “Next year I am doing this without them.”