I will be one of those frantic parents in the Walmart checkout line on the first day of school. I’ve never been there to witness them myself, but I know they exist; I’ll find out for sure tomorrow when I join them. Yes, I planned ahead well enough to buy the necessary school supplies, but what I failed to do was to supervise the middle-schooler who was excitedly stuffing her new backpack, apparently ignoring the direction to “pack what’s on your list”. Not really her fault – like I said, I should have been supervising her more carefully. But as a result, our 4th grader now has a locker full of 4th grade school supplies AND Kindergarten school supplies (she brought them to school last Friday during orientation), while our Kindergartner has an empty backpack.
We could follow our oldest daughter into her new middle school tomorrow to repo her sister’s school supplies, but I’m pretty sure being the only student whose parents follow her into school (especially with little brother and sisters in tow) could cause her emotional damage beyond repair. I’ll take my chances at Walmart.