Doing the School Supply Shuffle

There was a big commotion at Walmart last Saturday.

I dashed into the store to pick up a few things and thought I had time traveled to December 24.  The place was as packed as Christmas Eve with tired kids tagging along behind frustrated moms, trudging from aisle to aisle with a long list trailing behind them.  I immediately recognized the look….It was the annual Search for School  Supplies Trek, a time when mamas all over the country leave their homes to fulfill their duty of making sure their child has everything on their school supply list. 

 

For the first time in 15 years, I don’t have a school supply list.  No frantically running from store to store trying to find non-odorous, chisel- tipped dry erase markers, Fiskar left handed scissors, or vinyl, two-pocket folders with brads in red, yellow and purple only.  After running that race for my child, Drew, from 3K through 12^th grade, I am done with the school supply scavenger hunt.  Hallelujah, amen.

As a matter of fact, I could probably open a little school supply business on the side.  One of the best pieces of advice came to me several years ago from one of Drew’s elementary school teachers.  She suggested that we set aside one cabinet in our house and stock it with school supplies.  Pick up notebook paper, pencils, pens, construction paper – all that - when it is on sale and stick it in the cabinet.  That way you always have school supplies on hand.  I have done that for the past 7 or 8 years.   You need a purple, two pocket folder with brads?  I got it.  Need wide ruled or college ruled notebook paper?  No problem.  Poster board – what color?  Three hole punch or hand-held one-hole punch?  Composition books for one, three or five subjects.  Binders from half an inch to three and a half inches with inside pockets.  Notebook hole re-enforcers, ballpoint pens in black, blue and red, book covers, rulers, calculators – all available at Fondren School Supplies for Well Equipped Children. 

I remember when my mother took me to the Ben Franklin’s Five and Dime for school supplies when I started first grade at Senatobia Elementary School.  In 1964, we didn’t have to have a list.  We could pretty much remember what we had to have.    We left the “Meet the Teacher” meeting, walked downtown to the store and got my new book satchel, fat pencils, first grade tablet and box of fat, first grade Crayola colors.   I took an old bath towel for nap time.  We surely never had kindermats or designer backpacks or markers that smell like strawberries (I’m sure if I had a smell-good marker, I would have eaten it!).

The really big deal at back-to-school time was shopping for new school clothes.  We wiggled our dirty little toes into a pair of brand new school shoes – toes that had not been covered except on Sundays since we took off last year’s school shoes in May.  My sister and I each got new underwear, socks, and three new dresses.  In the mid-1960’s, we were not allowed to wear pants to school unless it was extremely cold – then we could wear pants under our dresses.    We wore pretty much the same thing to school every day – not because we had to wear uniforms, but because that was all we had to wear.  We had school clothes, play clothes and Sunday clothes – and never did the three intermingle.

I remember the year I desperately wanted a pair of white go-go boots.  My mother warned me that if I got the go-go boots, that would have to be my one pair of school shoes.  A fashionista even at age 8, I went with the go-go boots.  They were shiny white, patent leather, pointed-toe boots with a back zipper that just covered my ankles.   I wore those boots every single day until Christmas, when finally my grandmother gave me a pair of regular shoes.  I am still a sucker for senseless, but fashionable, shoes.  

While I am ecstatic about not being involved in this year’s hunting and gathering of school supplies, I admit that I will miss excitement of the first days of school.  I will miss checking off the list with Drew, making sure we have all that he needs for a promising school year.  I will miss tearing open the packages and organizing the supplies with him.  I’ll miss the excitement (and disappointment!) of finding out which teacher he gets and which of his friends are in his classes.  I have asked my child every single day for the past 30 school semesters, “What did you eat for lunch today?”  I will miss that.  I will even miss the nights when he suddenly remembered that he volunteered to bring sausage balls the next day to a class party.    I will miss that very special connection that mamas and their children have during their school years.  

I was in the restroom of McAlister’s restaurant the other day where a young mother was wrestling with her two young sons – a preschooler and an infant.  The three-year-old, blond curls spilling all over his chubby little face, was singing at the top of his voice while his frazzled mom changed his screaming baby brother’s dirty diaper.  Fussy children never bother me, but I could see that this teary-eyed mom was really at the end of her rope and was a little embarrassed that her children were being so rowdy.  “My children are not always so disruptive,” she told me, as she struggled to sooth the tired infant.  “We have been in the car all day and we are all tired.”  I assured her that her children were no bother and that they were both as cute as pie.  “I remember days like this,” I told her.  “Enjoy them while they are young.  Before you know it, they will be graduating high school and gone.”   The young mother smiled.

I dried my hands, patted the blond curls and left the bathroom, feeling a little bit nostalgic.   My 18-year-old college freshman son was anxiously waiting for me outside.    “Come on, Mom, we still have lots to do,” he said.

Indeed, we do.