Tuesday 4 September 2012

Let Freedom Reign aka Back to School!!!

For the past two months, I have been preparing for today. Those of you who know me understand that this is quite a feat. I am traditionally a procastinator at heart, and often feel my best work is done under pressure.  That being said, when school ended last year, I made a commitment to myself to have everything ready to go before the day before school started this year. 

I got pretty close - the only thing I had to rush around doing yesterday was taking the kids to buy 'indoor shoes'. But you see, there is a method to my madness. If you wait long enough to go to Wal-Mart and buy shoes, there is a very limited selection; therefore taking the pain out of watching three kids try to decide just which shoes they will wear for the next two months because their feet grow faster than a noxious weed at this age. This is particularly true if you go to a Wal-Mart in a small town. Needless to say, none of the kids were really 'happy' with their new shoes - but I was in and out in less than 30 minutes, each pair cost less than $15, and because it's all about me, I didn't really care.

We returned home, and I spent an hour of my life that I will never get back labelling school supplies - you know, the ones I had purchased in July (high five!). As I checked and double checked the list, I was thrilled to discover that the only thing I had missed was a hard case pencil box. Well, I didn't really miss it - but apparently, in Central Alberta, if you don't buy that pencil box on July 1, you are S#%@ Outta Luck. Whatever - I grew up using a pencil case and I think I turned out fine - a little weird - but I don't think that had much to do with where my pencils were stored.

Next up was packing the backpacks. My meticulous planning paid off and I was able to complete this step relatively quickly. There was that little issue of some food left in the bag from last year (eeeewwwww!) but thankfully it was in a plastic container and instead of spending the rest of the afternoon yakking in the toilet, I was able to give the kids a quick science lesson (yay me!) instead. 

Z was the only one actually going to school today so thankfully I just had to make one lunch. It would have been helpful if I could have remembered where in the heck I put his lunch kit last year - but we were able to use his brother's Spiderman kit in a pinch. This resulted in a very long argument discussion with B about it being ok to share his lunch kit. After all, he only had a half hour orientation today - and I reasoned that if I couldn't drink a Gin&Tonic while we were there, he sure as heck couldn't eat. Ok - maybe a flawed argument, but he's five and well, he eagerly accepted the extra time on the computer in exchange for seeing it my way.

After their baths, I helped each of them pick out the clothes they were going to wear today. It sounded something like - 'no, you can't wear that', 'yes, you have to wear underwear', 'no, a bathing suit is not appropriate for kindergarten orientation', and so on and so forth. We eventually reached a resolution that was satisfactory to all - and with that, it was off to bed.

I quickly gave B and Z's glasses a wash and set them on the counter. I was officially "Ready for Back to School". I did it!

I gave myself a quick pat on the back, chugged down a Corona in celebration, and went to bed knowing this would be the last day of the school year that I would be organized and ready to go. Sigh.

Oh yeah - one last thing . . . thankfully I checked the backpacks before I sent them to school this morning. Apparently, one of my children decided that my version of inside shoes wasn't 'fashionable' enough as I discovered these bad boys in the backpack . . .


I don't want to name names, but it *might* rhyme with 'wren'.

Happy Back to School Everyone!



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