When most women do school shopping for the first time, it's when they have a kindergartner or even preschooler. It seems friendlier to me. Fat crayons and blunt scissors. My list included flash drives.
I assembled my courage and school supplies lists and headed to Target.
It was all going fine, I was tossing packages of pencils and pens and glue sticks in the cart but then some things started to trip me up. Silly things. Like rulers and notebooks.
Which were best?
Suddenly it seemed like a Big Deal. I wanted Only The Best for my children. And truly, how do you determine which is the best possible ruler?
I got a hold of myself and two of the cheapest rulers and moved on.
I was soon flummoxed again though. Emma's (extensive) list included a small school box.
I had no idea what a school box was, let alone a small school box. A box the size of a school? (a small school?) Did the teacher mean a pencil box? But she didn't list pencil box. On a list so exact that it spelled out the exact type of dividers (8 pocket vinyl with slanted pocket), it seemed unlikely the teacher would write school box and mean pencil box, right?
I didn't know the answer.
Panic started rising in me.
How was I going to do this? What business did I have sending my children to school if I didn't even know what a school box was?
I called Adam for his take on the flash drives. (Anything remotely related to computers= Adam's department.) I told him what I was doing. I said, "This is hard for me."
"I know," he said.
And he did, which helped. He knew when I said it was hard, I didn't mean pondering the imponderables like 1) what are Flair pens? 2) Why does Emma need 4 of them? and 3) Why are they all sold out? Adam knew that I meant getting school supplies made it more real: buying them notebooks and pencils I won't see them use. They'll fill their composition books with things I won't be correcting. When someone says, "Get out your science book," it won't be me.
And that's hard.
I stopped by my friend JoLyn's house on the way home. She exudes calm, always. She told me to take one step at a time.
So I will.
Also, I remembered a story my mom told me. When her friend Nene's son was leaving for a mission, Nene wrote on index cards things Andrew had done that made her glad he was leaving. When she spoke in church, she'd refer to the cards when she felt like crying.
Maybe I'll do the same. I did just buy 200 notecards...
2 comments:
Everything makes me cry these days--your post about your kids going off to school, Baby Ammon growing out of our preemie clothes already--aren't I crazy? Yesterday I told Marianne Ammon is growing up too fast. She reminded me that her son didn't even ever fit the newborn-size clothes.
You're doing great. I had a bit of a panic episode this morning and I called Enoch to vent. He told me to just keep breathing and to only think about one thing at a time. It helped for about one minute and then I had too many things to think about and forgot the breathing thing.
Good luck with school supplies and motherhood. What's a flair pen? It sounds fancy. Will it help me remember to breathe?
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