Last week, on Tuesday, we dropped the kids off with George’s parents and headed out to the office supply store. I had a long list in hand, the one that had come home with her on the last day of school with all the things she needed to get for grade one. I wasn’t overly ecstatic about going because I thought it would be a nightmare of epic proportions, but the store wasn’t too crowded, the stuff was all laid out in a reasonably logical manner, and we found everything we needed quickly. In fact, we bought all the supplies, then went to Walmart (ugh) to buy her school bag, lunch bag, and dress shoes, and we were completely done in under an hour (and that included a stop at Zellers where we couldn’t find the school bag she wanted). Not bad!

(If you click through on the photo, it has notes as to what everything is. )

Now she’s just about set. We had bought her uniform bottoms (two pairs of pants, one tunic, and one skirt) a couple of weeks ago, she still has running shoes that are in good shape since she practically lived in sandals this year, and now she has her basic supplies. The only thing left to do is hit the dollar store for the required box of tissues, box of Ziploc bags, and I want to get a few containers for her lunch stuff. Whew.

And the countdown is on. September 2nd is coming up fast. I’m really hoping to get something in the mail soon so I can find out who her teacher is, and what classroom she’s in before the first day!

Buying all those supplies reminded me of being a kid. When I was growing up, as soon as school let out for the summer, my mother, my sister, and I would go up north to stay with my grandmother. We spent the entire summer there and it was awesome. My father had to work, of course, so he would stay home during the week, and then he’d drive up (it was only an hour) on Friday evenings to spend the weekend with us. I would spend two months playing outside, swimming, and riding my bike everywhere. Good times.

When the summer would finally draw to a close and we would pack up to come home – usually a few days before school started so as to give us a chance to settle back in to our home that felt so strange after two months away – I was always a little sad. I would be looking forward to seeing school friends again, and I liked school, but I would be reluctant to leave the countryside and the swimming pools.

The one thing I always anticipated on the drive home was seeing my desk. A week or two before school, my father would go to the store and he would pick up all the school supplies that we needed. In elementary school we had lists like Hayley; in high school he would just pick up the obvious basics and fill in the blanks during the first week of school. Rather than just leaving everything in a bag, he would set all our stuff up on our desk, like a display. For some reason, I’ve always loved school supplies and I would be so happy to run into my room and check out everything he had gotten for me, opening notebooks, putting looseleaf into the binders, and testing out the pens.

I thought about that while I was pushing the cart around the store last week with my list in one hand and a pencil case or pack of glue sticks in the other. Rather than the back-to-school clothes shopping, the supplies my dad got were always my favorite lead-in to heading back to class.

(This Parent Bloggers Network blog blast was sponsored by Hanes!)