Back to school

 Actually, I must confess that I was not one of the parents standing in lines to make these last-minute purchases. Instead, I was out of the house on work-related business, so my participation was limited to making daily lists of what needed to be located and purchased each day. I felt that after two years of spending my time checking school clothing for a proper fit and trying to decipher the long list of required supplies, it was my husband's turn to find out just what is required in getting our son organized for another year of school. I do confess that I was glad to be relieved of this duty.

 Knowing that some alterations would most likely be necessary, my husband and son were sent first to the one uniform store that carries the required clothing for the school. This seemed to me to be a fairly straightforward task because I sent them with a list of what clothing was needed, how many of each item was required and our son's current sizes. As I left for work, I reminded my husband to have our son try on the clothes before purchasing them to make sure they fit correctly. Apparently, they both found it boring to have to pass their time waiting in a line for the changing room. They decided that it was quicker to simply purchase the clothes the sales clerk handed them and then head off to the nearby video arcade. The result is that only the trousers actually fit correctly. Some of the items were too small, and some draped on our son, obviously a size or two too large. I now have a small collection of clothing that needs to be returned and exchanged for the proper size. Fortunately, we had enough clothing that fit well enough to have him ready for his first week of school.

 The following day, my husband and son were sent out to purchase the required books. The week before classes began, our school finally contacted parents to let them know that the new textbooks had arrived. However, even though it is a small school and the administrators knew in advance just how many students were registered for the upcoming year, for some reason, not enough textbooks were available. No one seemed to know if this was a clerical error on the school's part or a problem with delivery from the printer. In any case, this left my husband and son having to firmly stand their ground as other parents tried to push ahead and grab the available books without waiting for their turn in line. They did manage to stagger home burdened by numerous books but still lacking a couple of textbooks that the bookstore had run out of early. Since then, the school has received a new shipment that contained most of the missing books. Students are still waiting for one more workbook, which is promised to arrive in the near future.

Finally, just a couple days before school began, the boys were sent out to purchase the required supplies that would be needed for the new term. The school supplied the long list of items needed, and as my husband glanced through it, he wondered aloud why our son had to have so many different items for the third grade. I happily left them on their own as I headed out the door to work. When I returned home that evening, there were several bags of supplies piled inside of our front door. Our son greeted me moodily, saying that he did not get all the really cool items that he wanted for school. As we talked, it came out that my husband did not understand how important it was to our third grader to have school supplies with the latest “in” designs. So, instead of pencils, erasers and book covers that were emblazoned with SpongeBob Squarepants or Spiderman, he ended up with plain, generic goods for the classroom. These were functional, but to our son, just not hip enough. I have promised to let him pick out some additional school supplies with the designs he wants in the near future.

 All in all, my husband and son coped fairly well on their own, although it seems that they spent considerably more time in the video arcade than getting ready for school. There are some school-related errands that have been left for me to complete. My husband has now discovered that it takes much longer to get our son ready for school than he previously thought. I know that we should use this as a learning experience and plan ahead next year. However, I suspect that lik e many other parents, we will leave it until the last minute once again.