School Supplies-Like Christmas in July

A normal summer chore, shopping for school supplies, turned out to be just what our family needed this weekend. We usually go close to the end of summer, when the stores are crowded with frenzied moms searching for all the right items on their lists. Our little planner girl had been bugging me to take her shopping since she received her supply list in the mail back in June. She even made sure to type it and save the list to my desktop, just in case the original was lost or destroyed. As if that ever happens in our house. When is the last time an important paper had milk accidentally spilled on it or was tossed in the garbage with a piece of chewed gum wrapped inside of it? 

Trixie was especially excited to shop for school supplies in July, but I really was not that eager to go at first. We still have over six weeks left of summer vacation, so I felt like shopping now would damper our chill vibe. I did not want to think about what preparing for fall involves: waking up for school and packing lunches and monitoring homework and balancing the schedules-for four very different children! I felt like we just finished doing it for last year, why would I want to face the inevitable mayhem awaiting us in September?

Surprisingly, something completely different happened while Trixie and I shopped together. I was like a giddy school girl myself, strolling up and down the aisles of Staples. I was having a crazy good time helping her choose a new backpack, folders, and scissors, but I also found myself becoming excited at the trendy aqua colored journals and cool containers of push pins. Can you believe how many colors of Sharpies are available now? That store is like a sea of possibilities, overflowing with really fun tools and incredible supplies. Oh, the stories I could tell, the papers I could organize, the pencils I could sharpen. I kept imagining that I was like Kathleen Kelly, dreaming about bouquets of newly sharpened pencils from Joe Fox, er, I mean from Mark. 

I longed for everything new for myself. Instead, I practiced restraint and focused my energy on finding just the right items for all the kids. Marshall does not need his own supplies for preschool, but I knew that he would love to have something new like his older siblings. An eight pack of really fat crayons and some colored pencils of his own have absolutely hit the spot. Chip is thrilled to have his first 64-pack of crayons. He cannot believe how huge it is and yelled, "Mom, it even has sea green!" Reese's middle school binder is chock full of crisp white notebooks and a brand new pencil case. Trixie's backpack is sweet and sassy, and she already checked to make sure her snow pants will fit inside it this winter.

The fun did not stop at the store. Teacher Trixie had the boys sit in a circle while she pulled items out of the shopping bags. They made a game of it, guessing which supplies were for which kid. Second-grader Chip was hoping they were all for him. I could not stop smiling while I experienced the newness through the eyes of these children. The teacher in me, the mom in me, and the school-loving little girl in me are so thrilled that my children are having as much fun with preparing for school as I always did. I could not believe how gracious and thankful they were. It really was like Christmas morning, although they were shrieking over pencils and Post-Its instead of Legos and Wii games. We experienced a proud parent moment for sure. Now we can relax and enjoy the rest of summer knowing their bags are packed and ready to go. That is until the first day rolls around in September and the chaos begins again.

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