Mildly Embarrassing Monday: School Supplies

When Ironflower entered kindergarten, I discovered something that had eluded me as a teacher: buying supplies is a huge pain in the ass. When I was a teacher, I often bought extra supplies - many of my students came without. But I bought the supplies early, usually before anyone else was really thinking about school supplies. And since I usually just asked for whatever I found at my local Target, it didn't occur to me that my students' parents might have a hard time finding what was at my (on the other side of the city) Target in early July.

Also, I didn't know what the stores were like the weekend before school started.

But I quickly found out, that first kindergarten year. Every store was packed with obnoxious people. The teachers were VERY specific about brands and types of supplies. Instead of this being fun (I love office supplies in a way that might be a little disturbing), it was awful. We got everything on the list for the lowest prices; but I felt like we'd been through a war zone.

The following year, when Lovebug was entering kindergarten. I discovered that the PTA had a deal with School Toolbox*, where you paid a fee and they assembled the supplies for you, then shipped them to the school. I may have left lipstick kisses on the check, I was so grateful that I wouldn't have to go through the store thing again. 

The next year, for reasons I can't remember, we had a different company. Which shipped the supplies to our homes. Which also was late with many of them, necessitating a trip to get folders anyway. There were so many (justified) complaints that I think the program is over. 

And now we come to this year, with Ironflower entering third grade and needing things likeyellow lined post it notes. But I'm not doing the store thing again. In fact, by the end of the week, I'll have all of my kids' supplies. . .even the 3x3 yellow lined post it notes. I don't know if I got the very best prices, but since I'll have everything approximately 6 weeks before school starts, I don't really care. 

It started when the local grocery stores started putting out school supplies. Every school around here starts after Labor Day, but you wouldn't know it from our local stores. Anyway, I was looking at the supplies to find crayons and extra notebooks for their summer notebooks when I realized that the Crayola crayons (did I mention the teachers here are very brand specific?) were on sale. I knew crayons were on the supply lists, so I bought them. Then I noticed that the appropriate folders (plastic with pockets) were also there, so I bought those too. Two supplies down and I hadn't had to make an extra trip. 

That's pretty much one of my personal philosophies; avoid extra trips. Especially when they involve duking it out with more ferocious moms in the aisles at Office Depot. But then I remembered that I spend all day on the interwebz. And that Office Depot, like Staples, Target, KMart, Walmart and Amazon, has a website. Problem solved. Especially with a lot of them offering free shipping right now.

The mildly embarrassing Monday part of this is that it took 4 years for me to figure this out. Oh, and I am really excited to get our school supplies box. Like, looking forward to organizing it all and stuff. 

*This might not be the name of the company, but it was something like that.

Back To School Night: I Have Issues

I'm starting to think my town's Back-to-School night is some kind of PR campaign. There were dewy-eyed testimonials. And product placements. And speeches that sounded like those a copywriter would create. While they made our school sound completely wonderful, there were no numbers. No test scores. No data at all.

It was like the Republican National Convention of Back-to-School nights.

Taken in the school's courtyard/garden/awesomespace

I mean, I do happen to think the school is pretty great. But it's a public school. A very well-respected public school with a good ranking. It's not like we need to recruit people, right? Especially the people who are already there on Back-to-School night.

Maybe I'm just jealous that the teachers got to study with Lucy Calkins this summer. She was my first teaching idol.

The classroom presentations were fine. Of course. I was actually touched to see that Lovebug's veteran and award-winning teacher got nervous speaking to a room full of adults. She made a point of telling me how sweet Lovebug is, and how hard he is trying in class. He still hasn't quite adjusted to the full day. Ironflower's teacher wasn't as warm, but she does seem to have a sense of humor. Hot Guy went to Hugmonkey's class, but it sounds like they just went through everything that I heard at the meeting last spring. Plus, I already love his teacher.

Anyway, it was the whole group presentation that bugged me. It was so non-specific and rah-rah. I suppose that's why half the parents stood in the hallway talking loudly during it. I know I should be condemning (or politely ignoring) their rudeness, but mostly I was jealous.

Obviously I need to meditate more on my jealousy issues.

I guess I'm just used to hearing more hard data on these occasions. After teaching in an urban public school for so many years, where test scores mattered so much, I find it weird that no one even mentioned testing or attendance or even PTO membership. Though we did get asked to join the PTO, the educational foundation, the music and arts foundation and to support the after school program.

OMG, It's FINALLY The First Day of School

All three kids are starting school today. All three will be at the same school, even. The idea of them all being in the same place, with 2 of them on the same hours, kinda fills my heart with joy.

Okay, so does the idea of them going back to school. I love my kids to pieces, but I also love to be alone. And they love school, so it all works out. Our relaxing summer was great, but it was also long.

You know you've made the complete evolution from teacher to stay-at-home mom when you find the summers long. Of course, long as it was, we still only managed to do about half the things I wanted to do. Though when I was making these plans in my head, I really didn't get how much time it would take me to recover from that thing I said I would never talk about again. I also didn't realize how much writing for the content farm contributed to our entertainment budget.

So it's back to the gym and the content farm now that school is starting again. Did I mention that? And that all 3 kids are less than 5 minutes away? And Hugmonkey is going EVERY morning? I'm more excited than they are. I'm hoping to be able to exercise and write for money and still blog. Because I'm really enjoying blogging again.

My 3 high points of the summer were: our trips to the Bronx Zoo, watching Ironflower and Lovebug become great swimmers and discovering blogging again. What were yours?

Farewell, summer 2012. You were pretty awesome.