School supplies!

The kids have been waiting (impatiently) to go school shopping for weeks and weeks - pretty much ever since school got out for the summer. I was waiting until we were closer to school starting, because every year we go buy everything and then we get an email from at least one of the teachers saying, "Oh! Actually! Get this instead." (For the record? We got two emails last week saying exactly that. So i am vindicated!)

Today we went shopping for school supplies. Exciting! Exhausting! Expensive! The amount of stuff that each kid needs for the year is insane. And none of it is just, "Get a notebook!" It's, and i quote, "Sturdy 5 subject notebook - It should have a hard plastic cover like the Mead 5 Star notebooks, but it doesn't have to be that brand. Make sure it is the 8.5" X 11" size -- it is important that the size is correct or it won't work for gluing interactive notebook pages."

Houston and Katrina each needed three of those.

I looked longingly at the 17 cent notebooks as we tossed $5 notebooks into our cart.

Each of the teachers in middle school gives their own list. According to the lists, Houston should be bringing a total of 23 glue sticks to school. Twenty-three. We looked at each other and both of us were like, "NOPE!" He's got 10. That's more than one per month. If he runs out, we'll get more.

Two scientific calculators, 8 packs of notebook paper, 6 fancy notebooks, a giant binder, a ton of pens, pencils, mechanical pencils, erasers, folders, glue sticks, dry erase markers, colored pencils, colored pens, and dividers - and nearly $200 - later, we finally left the store. We still need to get Kleenexes and paper towels.

Kids are expensive. Going to school is expensive. I totally get that the teachers are already spending their own money for stuff for the classroom, and they shouldn't be buying this stuff out of their pockets, but i have to wonder how people with less money than us - or more kids - can afford to send their kids to school at all. We didn't even need to buy new backpacks or lunchboxes this year, so that's just stuff for the classroom. Crazy!

ANYHOW. So we came home to sort out the supplies. I suggested using the table this year, so that Emma wouldn't pester us, and the kids were all, "No!!!" Because apparently it's become a tradition for us all to sit on the floor as i throw their stuff at them and then read their lists as they put things into their backpacks. It's weird what things become traditions. I never meant that to be one, but it is a nice one, i suppose.