Now There are THREE Middle Schoolers in the House

The Youngest Boy (who recently gave me the green light to once again mention him in this space) has just left his elementary school days behind him. In September, he'll be movin' on up to the big middle school to join his elder siblings who'll be entering the eighth grade.

How this will work is anyone's guess as all three of them haven't been students in the same school before. (The Youngest Boy once attended pre-school in the same building as his elder siblings but there was no interaction between the pre-schoolers and the rest of the school population.) Will it go smoothly? Will there be resentment? Will the "vigorous" disputes the two boys have here at home spill out into the middle school hallways?

The three Picket Fence Post kids have quite varied personalities and don't really resemble one another much. One's quiet but determined, one's also determined but gregarious and the talkative one just collected an "award" for having the "best sense of humor." (A future Robin Williams-esque class clown?) Two play soccer and basketball while the other plays hockey and lacrosse. Two participate in bands at school (The Youngest Boy, a percussionist, joked to The Elder Boy that he's coming after his spot on one of the middle school bands) and one is active on the student council. Two are utterly addicted to video games and one is obsessed with voraciously reading books and watching Make It Or Break It episodes on my iPad, usually surrendering the device to me, under extreme duress, with .5 percent of its battery remaining.

So when The Youngest Boy walks into the middle school as a sixth grader in the fall, I hope he'll be able to carve out his own niche there and not simply morph into another incarnation of The Eldest Boy or The Girl, albeit with wildly curly hair and omnipresent sports jerseys.

June is the New December: Parents' Busiest Time of the Year

End of the season parties for sports teams.

End of the year bashes/barbecues at school.

End of the year school award ceremonies.

End of the year soirees for other extra curricular activities.

End of the year concerts/performances.

Gifts/thank you notes for the teachers, coaches and after-school activity supervisors.

Birthday parties.

Last-minute school projects.

Sports tryouts/evaluations for next fall's teams.

Making (or buying, shhh!) baked goods for one (or more) of those end of the year events.

Father's Day. (It's THIS Sunday!)

Did I forget anything, other than the fact that I still have to bring the kids shopping for Father's Day? I'm constantly forgetting something. It's that time of year, to forget stuff thereby requiring me to make a mad dash to the house of the person who's collecting money for a gift for the soccer coach (or for a class gift, etc.).

It's racing to the mall for a four-hour odyssey (seriously) of trying to help your teenage daughter to find the right bathing suit for the pool party, tomorrow, because last year's version so doesn't fit any more.

It's realizing that your eldest son's soccer game has been rescheduled (for the second time) on the same night as your youngest son's band concert. (And your youngest son, you notice minutes before you have to leave for the concert, has outgrown his "good" pants and you have to pilfer some from your oldest son's closet without him noticing because he'd be annoyed.) It's then realizing that your daughter's make-up soccer game is slated for the same night as your eldest son's band concert. Of course it is.

It's scurrying about for the components of a solar oven for your grade schooler's project as well as trying to find time when he can work on the project with another student. And it's due this week, the week of all the concerts, make-up games and parties. Plus your daughter has an orthodontist appointment to get her palate extender removed and braces placed upon her teeth, at the same time she has a math and a science test and she's freaking out about it all.

While December may be insane with all the pressure for holiday perfection and a mammoth quantity of shopping to tackle, I think the end of the school year has now surpassed it in terms of busyness. The month of June is packed with sweet, melancholy moments that make parents proud -- the sad end of things, the culmination of a year or a season's worth of work -- all at the same time.

Then *poof!* it's summer and all of it comes to a jarring end. And the kids complain, with nary a trace of irony, that there's nothing to do and they're bored.

Random Notes from Suburbia: Pi, 'Dogs in the City,' Overzealous Sports Mom & Being Tardy

Pi in the Sky

As part of a school math competition to see how many digits of pi students could accurately remember, The Girl was able to recall, hold onto your hats, 102 of them. Seriously. I have no idea how she did it. I have trouble remembering where I leave my car in the grocery store parking lot. I'm not all that far removed from being the lady who frantically hunts around everywhere for her glasses only to have someone point out that they're
perched atop her head.

This was a reason for celebration and parental pride, at least initially, that, with seeming ease, The Girl could rattle off all those numbers. She even fared well when her brothers asked her to name random digits like the 22nd or 47the digit and they checked her accuracy.

Then the situation took a sinister turn.

"Hey, I'll bet she could memorize your credit card numbers," The Eldest Boy said as he raised his eyebrows.

Uh oh.

'Dogs in the City:' My Summer Shame

I hate -- I mean hate, hate, hate, hate -- reality TV shows. Other than the first two seasons of Survivor which aired some 10+ years ago, I haven't been a regular viewer of any reality programs because I find them to be 1) contrived 2) encourage bad behavior to nab ratings and all the accouterments accompanying reality show success (i.e. -- Snooki on the best seller list) 3) are wildly manipulated by the shows' producers and are in no way "reality" and 4) take prime-time slots and jobs away from screenwriters and all the other professionals who put together scripted television shows.

That being said . . . before a Celtics game aired the other night (Go Green y'all), I was flipping through the stations and happened upon this new CBS show Dogs in the City. And, I'm ashamed to admit, I liked it, given that I'm so into all things canine these days. (For those of you wondering whether I've dropped the notion of getting a second dog to join Max our Havanese/Wheaten, I haven't, much to The Spouse's chagrin.)

Not only did I fall in love with the dogs on the silly show, but I learned a few things about pet training and was astonished by the idiocy of some of the dogs' owners. The woman who brought her dog to work with her after the dog had bitten a number of people and regularly lunged at her employees when they walked into her office? Really, that was a question, whether that dog belonged in an office setting?

Dogs in the City, I'm afraid to say, is destined to become my summer TV shame. Who can resist a skateboarding bulldog named Beefy who has separation anxiety?

Overzealous Sports Mom

Scene: An afternoon lacrosse game being played by boys, ages 10-12.

Featuring: A woman who was, I'm guessing, the mother or close female relative of the goalie for the opposing team. Or else she was a complete lunatic who happened to know the name of the goalie and felt perfectly comfortable screaming at him.

Some of the woman's best quotes, bellowed loudly from her comfortable perch on her folding chair on the sidelines, included:

"[NAME OMITTED]! Come on! Block that [NAME OMITTED]!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Toughen up!"

"[NAME OMITTED]! Don't flinch at the ball! You're the goalie! That's what the pads are for!"

Going through my head: "Hey lady, why don't you go stand in the goal, wearing lacrosse pads, and let me hurl hard lacrosse balls at your head and see if you flinch! He's a kid for god's sake!"

I think this lady needs to watch the video below, about one high school athlete helping out another at a state championship meet to remind herself of why we have kids participate in sports: To build character, learn teamwork and create the good, healthy habits of staying physically active. It's not about berating and harassing from the cheap seats.

 

Unfortunately, I'm willing to bet that the woman who was yelling all of that garbage at the pediatric goalie wouldn't be at all impressed with how the high school runner helped out another, which is a sad, sad commentary of where youth sports parents are today.

Being Tardy

The Eldest Boy was participating in an event where the school band was going to be performing "The Star Spangled Banner," among other tunes, which was a very good thing, except that the band was performing at an event about 45 minutes or so away from our house. And we had to get there in rush hour traffic. And The Girl, The Youngest Boy and I had to wait for The Spouse to get home from work -- battling through rush hour traffic -- BEFORE jumping into the car to drive to The Eldest Boy's event.

We arrived just AFTER his band completed their musical performance. Oh yeah, I got your Parents of the Year right here buddy.

Image credits: This web site and Brian Friedman/CBS.

Surprises in the Backpack

The other night I decided to go through The Youngest Boy’s backpack because I didn’t really buy his story that he had no papers, no homework, no nothing to give to me.

What I found in there, aside from a couple of smelly zip-up sweatshirts, were three notes addressed to The Spouse and I, as the parents of The Youngest Boy. The notes told us that we owed the school cafeteria varying amounts of money. The totals in the individual notes never surpassed $10.
And I was dumbfounded. Each morning The Spouse or I ask the kids if they need lunch money. They are quite comfortable with pilfering small bills from my purse or from The Spouse's wallet. Oftentimes, we only have tens or twenties and have to hand them over. (I'm not very good at following up and demanding change, to be honest, though I suppose I should start holding them accountable for said change.)

So how in the world could we have had a deficit with the school cafeteria, which now probably thought we were deadbeats for not responding to three different notes which never made it out of The Youngest Boy’s backpack? (Seriously, trusting a 9-year-old to give us notes telling us we owe money isn't the smoothest of moves.)

The Youngest Boy swore up and down that he was all square with the cafeteria folks. Claimed that he checked today and confirmed that fact.

All of this makes me suspicious as to what’s really going on here. Is the 9-year-old giving money to someone else? Is he buying more food (like extra milks, double lunches) or stupid stuff at the student store, then using his own cash to make up the difference? The answers from the 9-year-old are insufficient to satiate my curiosity.

Three for Thursday: Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns, Homework Monitoring & Hockey Schedules

Rotting Jack-o-Lanterns

Once again, I have the scariest doorstep in the neighborhood.

Why? Because The Spouse and I have left the three jack-o-lanterns that the kids carved on Columbus Day weekend on the front steps. Now they’re moldy, collapsing piles of mush. So the question is, do I leave them on the doorstep to "scare" people on Halloween or toss 'em out to prevent the spreading of the mold-infested mush all over my doorstep? (I'm inclined to go with option number two.)

Homework Monitor: Helicopter Parenting or Responsible Parenting?

He knew that he had to finish the hat. The vocabulary word hat to be precise. Each member of my 9-year-old’s class was assigned a vocabulary word and was asked to create a hat which represented the meaning of the word without using other words.

For days I’ve been nagging The Youngest Boy about his hat – had he thought about what he’d like to do, had he pulled together the necessary material, etc. “You don’t want to wait until the last minute,” I told him as he'd tell me it wasn’t due until Friday.

When he presented me with his hat yesterday, I suggested that he needed to use something sturdier than Scotch tape to hold up this big piece of cardboard he wanted to attach to a hat. I offered to help him attach an elastic string to it later, later meaning today.

Then, as we were pulling out of the driveway this morning, with 10 minutes to spare before he was supposed to walk through the school door, The Youngest Boy started shouting that his hat wasn’t due on Friday, it was due TODAY. And because I was the one who suggested that he ditch the tape and replace it with an elastic but hadn’t yet done so, all of this was my fault.

I will admit that I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory when I reacted angrily to all of this. Luckily, The Spouse was still in the house, so I told The Youngest Boy to get out of the car and have his father assist him while I drove the other two kids to school so they wouldn’t be late.

Here’s my question: Where’s the line between being a helicopter parent (who is doing her offspring no favors by doing everything for them, coddling them, instead of making them learn to do things for themselves, always coming to the rescue) and being a responsible parent who’s trying to teach her kids, as they gain the maturity, how to be responsible for themselves?

Three for Thursday: Satirizing Sanctimommies, Bullying the Allergic, Uncool on 'Parenthood'

Item #1: Satirizing Sanctimommies

When I found this series of online videos satirizing sanctimommies, I was immediately smitten. The videos, posted on xtranormal.com, feature two women at a park, one “normal” (meaning she tries to raise well-rounded kids with her feet firmly planted on the ground) and one who thinks that parenting is a competitive sport complete with winners and losers, who believes it's wise to install GPS chips in her kids.

What I love about the series of videos is how the “normal” mom has the stones to refute the inanities spouted by the judgmental whack-job mom, and the "normal" mom is quick with the retorts, whereas we mere mortals might be rendered speechless and slack-jawed upon hearing such unmitigated garbage being emitted by a fellow parent at a park.

Here’s one of my favorites:



Item #2: Bullying the Allergic

When I read this Fox News story I was astonished and disheartened by the cruelty some children can level at one another. According to a study published in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, over 30 percent of school children said they have been the target of harassment at school because they have a food allergy, Fox reported. Forty percent of those kids who were harassed said the harassment took a physical form “such as being touched with their allergen, such as a peanut, or having the allergen thrown or waved at them,” Fox reported.

The vice president of the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, who also worked on the study, said, “Recent cases involving bullying and food allergies include a middle school student who found peanut butter cookie crumbs in her lunchbox and a high school student whose forehead was smeared with peanut butter in the cafeteria.”

As if this wasn’t bad enough, the study found that 20 percent of those who harassed students with allergies were teachers or school staff.

Item #3: Uncool on Parenthood

The first few episodes of Parenthood this season have been excellent. They’ve depicted parents as flawed, selfish, selfless, controlling, hopeful and worried adults, in other words, like flesh and blood, well-rounded people. This past episode (still available for free online viewing until Nov. 3) stood out for me because I completely related to it.

First, there was the dad, Adam (Peter Krause), who had his feelings hurt when his son Max, who has Asperger’s, was disinterested in speaking to or spending time with him. Adam tried, on several occasions, to engage Max in a conversation, to persuade him to sit next to him and watch a baseball game, all to no avail. Are there any parents who HAVEN’T experienced that gut-level twinge when our kids push us away, don’t seem to care about our feelings or act like they don’t want us around?

Second, there was Adam’s wife Kristina (Monica Potter), who used to work on political campaigns before becoming an at-home mom, who was over the moon when she learned that her teenage daughter Haddie was going to run for class president. Only Kristina, blinded by her enthusiasm, pushed way too hard, tried to take over Haddie’s campaign and then admonished her daughter for not appreciating her mother’s efforts. Just a few hours before this episode aired, The Girl came home from school and told me she was thinking about joining the school newspaper. I, a former newspaper reporter, was ecstatic (even though newspapers are, in their current form, dying) and had visions of my mentoring her running through my head. But after watching how this played out on Parenthood, I think I’ll wait for The Girl to come to me and ASK for help if she needs it.

Third, there was the sad spectacle of Sarah (Lauren Graham) who was jealous that her teenage daughter Amber was spending so much time with her friend’s parents, who are rich and with whom Sarah felt she couldn’t compete. In order to fashion herself into the “cool” mom in her daughter’s eyes, Sarah went to great lengths, though it was painfully clear – especially after a bouncer called her “ma’am” -- that she’s no longer a hip club-hopper and that trying to seem cool to her a daughter is a losing battle.

For my review of the must-watch episode, go here, to the Clique Clack TV site.

Being 'The One' Who's Mean and, Apparently, Power-Mad

Image credit: Comics Kingdom/Oregonian

“Why do you have to be the one?”

That’s what a child of mine – who shall remain nameless -- asked me recently when said individual was railing against me, the power-mad, all controlling mother who'd said, "No," to something the person requested. Over the past few weeks, here are the questions two of the Picket Fence Post kids have asked me this person wanted to know was:

Why do I have to work? (Two of my children gripe about the fact hat I’m not as available as “the other moms” who volunteer in the schools, constantly arrange play dates for their kids and sign their offspring up for as many sports and activities as the children desire. Meanwhile, I can barely get the kids to their sports practices on time, feed them, oversee their homework and do my own work.)

Why do I make the family go to church? (Our Christian-Jewish family attends a Unitarian Universalist church where the Picket Fence Post kids – two of ‘em anyway – are practically dragged kicking and screaming into Sunday school each week. They think that my forcing them to go to church is, like, totally unfair and mean.)

Why don’t I drive the kids to school/pick them up every day like other parents? (Whenever possible, I have the kids take the school bus. It's simply more convenient. However because they have to be at school early – meaning before the bus would arrive at the school – for various activities, The Spouse or I already drive them to school three mornings a week.)

Why do I buy “only healthy” foods and try to avoid foods containing high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated fats when “no one else's mother” does? (I’m constantly accused of depriving my children of sweets and being a wild-eyed health nut. Me! The one who’s addicted to coffee and has an unhealthy attachment to barbecue potato chips. When I pointed out to the child who was asking me this question that, during the course of the week in which this statement was uttered, I’d made apple crisp served it with ice cream, bought a second gallon of ice cream, purchased Mint Milanos, snickerdoodle cookies and Cheez-Its, the kid replied, “Well those don’t count.” Why didn’t those foods count? Because all the sweets/snacks had already been consumed when the kid said this, except for the vanilla ice cream, and the complainer didn’t feel like having vanilla ice cream.)

Why don’t I allow the children to have unfettered access to the internet and computers in their rooms like “all the other kids at school?” (The kids can use a family laptop computer as long as they do so in a common area of the house – like the kitchen or dining room – and there’s a parental control on it which, I must say, is a pain in the neck as I'm constantly having to "approve" sites. In instances when they’ve wanted to go on YouTube -- which gets blocked, they’ve had to do it with me or The Spouse overseeing it. This makes me/us overprotective, hovering freak(s), apparently.)

Why do I limit their TV watching/video game playing? (We have a so-called “TV hour” on weekdays, timed to occur when I’m making dinner and don’t feel like dealing with the inevitable gripes about what I’m cooking. However they’ll keep watching/playing long after the hour has elapsed, waiting for me to tell them to turn it off. Even if it’s been in excess of an hour, I still get griping or pleas of, “Oh Mom, just let me finish this level” or “But we just started this show!”)

Why won’t I let them have cell phones when “tons of other kids” in their school have them? (I’ve told them that when they’re going to be in locations where they will have to spend time alone, without adult supervision, or if they have to walk long distances alone, I’ll get – or loan them – cell phones. So far, there hasn’t been a need for them. When they’ve taken walks with the dog, I've let them borrow my phone. This unreasonable, irrational anti-cell phone stance means that I’ve destroyed their street cred and made it impossible for the other kids to text them.) This last question was the subject of today’s Pajama Diaries comic which made me laugh when I saw it this morning.

Sometimes being “The One” who places all these restrictions on the kids feels pretty lonely, especially when they make me sound like just this side of Attila the Hun. I just hope that, once they're older, they'll get that I was trying to do what I thought was right for them, not act like a power-mad dictator. Believe me, it's not because it's fun being "The One." It'd be much easier for me to say, "Yes" to most of these things instead of enduring their criticisms all the time as they sometimes wish aloud that one of the "other" sainted mothers that their friends have were their mom.

Image credit: Pajama Diaries via Oregonian/Comics Kingdom.

Me & The Mom from 'The Middle:' Trying to Get (And Stay) Organized for School

Image credit: ABC

While watching The Middle’s season premiere this week I felt as though I was a kindred spirit with the lead character, Frankie Heck, played by Patricia Heaton.

After a disastrous first day of school in the Heck household – everyone got up late, the grade-school-aged boy’s backpack still had a rotting sandwich from the previous school year inside, the kids (including the teen boy who was still in his boxers but was holding his clothes in his hand) missed the bus – Frankie vowed to change things when it came to school, “get in front" of the things they needed to do” for once in their lives.

The following morning, Frankie got up early and prepared a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs (which seriously confused her kids because she never does that), got and set an alarm for her teenage son so he could get himself up, bought her youngest a new backpack, baked a freezer full of brownies so she’d be prepared for a year’s worth of school bake sales, filled out all school paperwork immediately, dashed off a check for her daughter’s cross country team sweatshirt right away and met with her youngest son’s teacher on day three of school to give her a head’s up on his idiosyncratic behavior.

I’ve been trying to do a similar thing since the Picket Fence Post kids have returned to school. Thus far, I’ve filled out and returned every form immediately (or at least I’ve handed them to the kids, whether they’ve submitted them is anyone’s guess). I’ve grabbed my BlackBerry and the family calendar in our kitchen and recorded the dates and times for things like school picture day, curriculum nights and parental information nights so as to not inadvertently miss them. I’ve been writing the day’s events on our white board in the kitchen (next to the fridge and the family calendar) the evening beforehand after the kids are in bed so everyone can see what’s on the agenda and plan accordingly.

After a disastrous first day of school in the Heck household – everyone got up late, the grade-school-aged boy’s backpack still had a rotting sandwich from the previous school year inside, the kids (even the teen boy in boxers, holding his clothes in his hand) missed the bus – Frankie vowed to change things when it came to school, “get in front of them” for once.

The following morning, Frankie got up early and prepared a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs (which seriously confused her kids because she never does that), got and set an alarm for her teenage son so he could get himself up, bought her youngest a new backpack, baked a freezer full of brownies so she’d be prepared for a year’s worth of school bake sales, filled out all school paperwork immediately, dashed off a check for her daughter’s cross country team sweatshirt right away and met with her youngest son’s teacher on day three of school to give her a head’s up on his idiosyncratic behavior.

I’ve been trying to do a similar thing since the Picket Fence Post kids have returned to school. Thus far, I’ve filled out and returned every form immediately (or at least I’ve handed them to the kids, whether they’ve submitted them is anyone’s guess). I’ve grabbed my BlackBerry and the family calendar in our kitchen and recorded the dates and times for things like school picture day, curriculum nights and parental information nights so as to not inadvertently miss them. I’ve been writing the day’s events on our white board the evening beforehand after the kids are in bed so everyone can see what’s on the agenda and plan accordingly.

Then I went to two different back-to-school nights and learned that one kid had reading assignments he was already supposed to be doing at home but hadn’t been. Teachers referred to some textbooks that the students had been given, assuming that we parents knew all about them. (I know that my kids had to – and promptly did – put covers on their textbooks. The Spouse helped them turn paper grocery bags into book covers the night the books came home, but I personally didn’t had a chance to comb through all their books. I did peek at a social studies text though.)

The two boys are in their school bands but neither child can seem to remember exactly when they’re supposed to go to school early and when they’re supposed to bring their instruments to school. Given that The Youngest Boy has a giant xylophone in a rolling case, it’s kind of important to know when he’s expected to lug it there. Though I’m really big on getting the kids to be responsible for their own things and assignments – how will they learn if they don’t make mistakes? – I must admit I’ve sent e-mails to their band teachers attempting to clear the confusion so the kids don’t spring a “Hey mom you need to drive me to school!” announcement while I’m still in my PJs and they have to leave immediately.

For the fictional Frankie Heck on The Middle, her valiant attempts to “get in front” of all the school madness backfired, went kaflooey and she gave up. Hopefully, that won’t be my fate too. I’m still doggedly hanging on the illusion that I can keep on top of this school stuff. Then again, it’s only September.

Image credit: ABC.

Florida Dad Confronts His Daughters' Harassers on School Bus

A Florida father is being investigated by police, and may yet be arrested, after he boarded a school bus and asked his daughter to point out the kid who'd allegedly beaten up and taunted the girl during bus rides, the local NBC Miami affiliate reported.

"The Seminole County Sheriff's Office may seek charges of false imprisonment, disorderly conduct, interrupting a school function and assault," the station reported.



What do you think about what the father did in this case, boarding the bus and trying to scare/threaten his daughter's alleged harasser? About his possible arrest?

This is Why I Love Brian Williams, Calling People Who Want to Ban School Swings 'Safety Types'

I cracked up watching the segment below of the NBC Nightly News this week while Brian Williams waxed poetically and sarcastically about being a part of a generation that was "hardened by the horrors" and "violence" of playing school yard dodge ball, experiencing the "exquisite sting of the red rubber ball" usually in the middle of one's back. He even named his "personal nemesis" from grade school who used to slam him with balls which, to a 9-year-old Brian, felt like they were traveling at 100 miles per hour.

This was all a lead-in to Williams reporting that "safety types" -- the same ones who've tried to rid the nation's schools of the scourge of dodge ball -- are now setting their sights on swing sets as a safety menace. Trying to restrain the glee in his voice, Williams noted that an attempt to ban the swings in a West Virginia county failed when those "safety types" suffered the "embarrassing realization" that the swings are "required" on school playgrounds by education policies.

Score one for sanity. And Brian Williams.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Random Question . . .

I spent some quality time this evening going through the stacks of papers the three Picket Fence Post kids brought home from their first day of school -- and answered the same questions on various school forms over and over again -- and have a question:

What does it mean when there are grammatical errors and inconsistent punctuation in correspondence sent to parents from school officials?

It's School Time . . . Where Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

There comes a point during the summer when you're a work-from-home or an at-home parent, where you feel like you're going to lose your mind. Either the kids won't stop fighting over stupid stuff or they're telling you they're bored (like you're their cruise director in charge of their amusement or something) or they're nagging you to death for a) TV b) video games c) snacks d) all of the above.

Today as the three Picket Fence Post children went off to school, I was saddened to see the summer come to an end, but was pleased that I'll get a reprieve from moments like this one (though I'm not usually lying down in a bed when the children are still awake):

School Supply Shopping: It's Not Just About Pencils Any More

There was this one scene from the movie You’ve Got Mail where Meg Ryan, who played the owner of a children’s bookstore, is happily arranging freshly sharpened pencils on her check-out counter after her e-mail “pen pal” had written to her, "Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”

All those lovely, nostalgic thoughts about the promise of the new school year can get me in the mood for autumn, but any poetic sentiments I might’ve been holding about the smell of freshly sharpened pencils were immediately eclipsed the moment I walked into the store (two separate stores, actually) to buy my kids' school supplies. Why? Because back to school time is no longer just about some pencils and notebooks and maybe a new backpack. It’s about these dang school supply lists whose items parents are supposed to buy because schools no longer provide the stuff.

I spent this afternoon racing back and forth in a wildly disorganized fashion through the packed, disorganized aisles of Target and Staples with the three Picket Fence Post kids trying to locate the items on their school supply lists. I started off hoping that we’d get this done quickly, sans drama, but alas, it wasn’t long before I started getting cranky and frustrated.

(The Youngest Boy suggested that after we found the school supplies that we pick out school clothes. This proposal was swiftly rejected. I told him there was no way that I was doing that again without his father in tow. I’ve been down that road before, taking the three of ‘em clothing shopping alone. Wound up sweating, racing from one changing room to the next, trying to get the right sizes, demanding that they show me the clothing on their bodies to check how they fit, arguing with them . . . not doin’ that again solo if I can help it.)

If you can believe it, Target was out of block erasers. They were also out of those sturdy, 100-page composition books with the black and white covers. I must’ve looked five times in the school supply and office supply sections, but had no luck. When I was finally resorted to asking a clerk about those items, he shrugged and led me to another guy who was nice but gave me that, “Boy are you late lady,” look and said, “Sorry, we’re all out of those.”

Later at Staples, the kids could only find these fairly expensive erasers, and I needed to buy a total of 24 of them. I refused to believe that Staples would be completely out of those pink block erasers, so I asked a sales clerk there if those were the only erasers Staples had in stock and he . . . you guessed it . . . shrugged his shoulders. I later found cheaper, Staples-brand pink erasers, no thanks to that guy.

And for what, pray tell, were we shopping? Here’s the exact list that my fourth grader’s teacher sent to him:

“1 pair of Fiskar pointed-tip kid scissors

2 large glue sticks

2 packages of 12 #2 pencils with erasers

1 box of 8 ct. Crayola washable markers (conical tip, fat)

2 Ultra fine tip black Sharpie markers

1 box of 24 ct. Crayola Colored Pencils

1 – Sharpie Accent Highlighter

7 twin pocket folders, one of each color: red, green, blue, purple, orange, yellow, white

2 twin pocket folders – your choice of color or pattern

3 (100 pg. wide ruled) Mead Composition books, black and white firm marble covers

2 Black 3-ring binders (1/2”)

1 package (100 sheets) 3 hole punched line paper

1 plastic pencil box

4 packages of “super sticky” post-it notes (3”X3” size, solid colors)

2 rolls of scotch tape – clear

2 boxes of tissues”

We couldn’t find a white pocket folder, so we bought a clear plastic one. The only pointed-tip kid scissors were larger and for older kids, but I bought them anyway. (Speaking of which, why do we have to keep bringing in a new pair of scissors every year? Where did the ones we bought last year go? Why can't the kids put their names on their stuff and be responsible for their own scissors?)

Here’s the recommended supply list for the two older children, who are starting sixth grade next week:

“8 Two Pocket Folders, one each- red, yellow, blue, green, purple, orange, and two colors of your choice

24 Pencils

12 Red Pens

12 Erasers

Ruler (Vinyl)

Protractor

Package of Index Cards

You will also need an assignment book or planner. [The Middle School] assignment book may be purchased for $5.00 when school reopens. If you choose not to purchase a [Middle School] planner, please bring your own planner on the first day of school.”

Additionally, in a letter sent home to the middle schoolers by the principal, the students were told they also needed “a notebook.”

Total cost of all of the above supplies (not including the “extras” the kids wanted/said they needed, like stuff for the middle school lockers, multi-subject notebooks and expandable folders to keep their papers organized, etc.): $81.45.

Me, I’d be happy with a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.