I love having all the kids' school supplies purchased well in advance and stored perfectly until back to school. The reality is a little messier.
Let's talk about the trip to the store with all your kids. That was a bad idea. You thought they'd be helpful, calm, and decisive in your short trip. This did not happen. It will never happen, either, because your kids aren't robots (although if they are, allow me to apologize for your inter-human-machine adoption; you are obviously forward-thinking and generous.)
I checked on the supplies this morning and found four empty Crayola boxes with no sign of the disappeared crayons. What happened to them? I hope they're not at the bottom of my oven. Please cross your fingers they don't turn up when someone flushes. The remainder seem to be spreading out when I'm not looking, migrating to all corners.
I was great at buying the supplies in a timely fashion. I wasn't good enough to hide them inside a locked steam trunk stowed in the panic room, or wherever it is that better mothers put their supplies. A friend of mine is one of eight children. Her mother resorted to a combination lock on her food pantry to keep order. I'm ready to put a combination lock on my whole house.
There is little better in this bitter world than fresh school supplies. They are so tidy and bright in their perfect boxes and cute packages. And there's nothing as terrible as your kid never finding another pencil in your house again during the whole school year. Where do all the pencils go? Are they running away with the socks? I will not support their cross apparel/supply love affairs, my tolerance does have limits.
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All the supplies will be left at school during the meet-the-teacher night. The pencils, Kleenex, markers, folders, crayons, erasers--pencil-top and pink alike--will be collectivized and distributed, each according to their need. I'll have to wave goodbye to all the beautiful supplies until they come home in bits and pieces over the year.
In the meantime, I'll have to beat the children away from the supplies with their unused summer bridge workbooks and overdue library books.
What about you? Are you delighting in the exquisite pain of school supplies?
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