Last week was spent filling out school forms and double checking the supply list. My sister, Cyberspace Sarah, had "48 sharpened pencils" on one of her lists. Really? That's 5.3 sharpened pencils a month for third grade. We didn't have anything that exciting on either one of our lists. Colin must be going to a loose leaf system. His list didn't come out until last week. I'd already bought a pile of wide lined notebooks and then panicked because I thought he'd need college rule. I bought another pile. He doesn't need any of them. He needed loose leaf. I used to prefer loose leaf myself, but now I have a huge pile of notebooks. We'll need them eventually.
Preschooler D (who is going to become an actual preschooler next week!) needed two jumbo glue sticks and a bottle of glue. Apparently there is a lot of gluing in preschool . . . but no coloring. He didn't need crayons. Go figure.
Brent has just been giving a pep talk to Colin. "Seventh grade is going to be great! You're going to be doing all kinds of new things!"
"Like what?" asked Colin.
"Well . . . ah . . . um. All kinds of new things!!"
No, Colin. We fear that seventh grade is just going to be sixth grade with harder books, shorter recess and no study hall. Of course, that's no way to send your child into a new school year. "Whoo-hoo!! Who's ready for seventh grade?!"
These conversations are just hard. The other night Brent asked D what he was most looking forward to at school. His answer was, "Learning math."
Oh, son. There's no math at preschool. Just gluing.
For a little perspective on first day trauma, head over here to Rachel's blog on buying school supplies. Rachel has lived in Africa many years. This is the first year her kids will be going to American school. She also has a great entry yesterday about going to open house.
