Despite the cutsey commercials about pouty kids and gleeful parents going back to school shopping, it is, in fact a nightmere. First, you spend a lot of money on clothes. Why? Not sure. True they grow, but at a certain rate, like plants. Why they suddenly need a whole new wardrobe when three months ago their clothes were fine for school is a giant mystery. Apparently in these three months, all the styles have changed. What was hip and "in" is now passe, and so-five-minutes-ago. And these are kids who wear uniforms to school.
After somehow spending a ton of dough on new shoes, sox, underwear (really, your underwear is now out of style?), uniforms, weekend wear, accessories, hair ribbons, watches, glasses and belts, its time to hit the office supply stores. With the younger kids, I got a list a mile long for obsolete items such as blue erasable pens. I believe thats what pencils are for. Or 220 pages of notebook paper. Of course they are only sold in packs of 150 pages. Lest we forget the index card holder and the six quart clear boxes.
This year my philosophy started out very sane. If they didn't sell the school supply in the same Walmart where I buy my groceries, I wasn't getting it. No more chasing after odd, custom-made sizes of poster board. And lest you scoff at the Walmart reference, their food stores rock. Same food, but cheaper. And they sell wine and beer. What more can you ask for? True, i have to go to different stores for some fancier ingredients, but thats OK. I am happy to do most of my shopping where I spend less on the staples. Plus, I feel good knowing that I feed my kids for the absolute lowest price.
Speaking of Staples, eldest child is picky about school supplies and insisted we drive 30 minutes away to find a Staples because she likes their brand of binder. Nevermind that we live five minutes from an OfficeMax, Target, Walmart and ten from Office Depot. Plus, I was on to the Staples trick of having a great price on a couple of items, and very high prices on everything else. Sure I saved $3.00 on pencils, but I spent an extra $49 on binders. Never would have happened at Walmart.
Anyway, I know that the first day of school is coming and I will see the children go into the school and meet their teachers. At the end of the day, I will ask them how the first day went. And they will hand me an additional list of school supplies that they will need by the next week.....