Bouquets of Newly Sharpened Pencils

A week from today, my kids will head back to school. I have a pretty good start on school shopping. I have all the supplies on my son's list, and I'm hoping that I'll get my daughter's list of supplies in the mail today. I guess we'll have to wait until later to find out for sure.

Every time I go shopping for school supplies, I'm reminded of the line from the movie “You've Got Mail” when the Tom Hanks character tells the Meg Ryan character “I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils...”. For some reason, I adore that line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vViMeAkOsv8

I admit, before I had kids, I would wander among the school supplies, and sometimes sneak an item or two. Or six. Some of the stuff I could use for work, and then I sometimes worked from home, so... I loved buying inexpensive crayons, packs of paper, new notebooks, or pens by the dozen. I loved post-it notes and highlighters and sharpies. When it's time to go shopping for school supplies, I don't mind it.

Contrast buying school supplies to shopping for clothing. Not nearly as much fun as it should be. I found stuff online this year. It was actually fairly risky because I'm not exactly sure what size my daughter is right now. She's just growing out of children's sizes, but she still might fit in some children's sizes, and we all know how junior sizes run...it's a messy business. My son is pretty easy to shop for when it comes to clothes. Choosing shoes, or more precisely sneakers, with him can be a patience-testing exercise. This year, though, both kids got shoes they liked, without arguing (with me or each other), within 30 minutes. That was a lovely shopping trip. Even if I spent a little more than I wanted to, and my daughter still doesn't have sneakers...

Well, to be fair, she wanted what she called “normal sneakers”. When asked to provide further details as to what “normal” is, she wants plain, basic solid-color, preferably Nike. I'm assuming something like these:

And not these:

                          

And while they had a plethora of the multi-color kind in all brands, most of the solid-color shoes kinda looked like they were made for the mall-walking crowd. And I mean no offense by that, it's just that a twelve-year-old doesn't want to wear the same kind of shoes as mall-walkers.

Which reminds me. It's now official. The shoes that are too small for my daughter now fit me, or some are too big for me. My son wears the same shoe size I do in boys' shoes. Any day now I expect to become the mini mommy. I mean, this comes as no surprise, my kids have always been tall, my husband is tall, and he comes from a tall family. Now, my kids' foreheads are awfully close to my forehead. We're already in the phase where you need to know who owns what shirt because my son, my daughter, and I wear really similar sizes, so going by size alone won't help anymore. So far, it's just shirts, but soon, it won't be.

While school shopping can be a pain sometimes, I try to remember that all too soon, I won't be shopping for school clothes and school supplies, but dorm gear, then housewarming gifts.

For all of the unsolicited advice I got while I was pregnant, one little gem has stuck with me through the years. I don't even remember who told me because I was pregnant with my daughter, who is turning twelve in less than 2 weeks, but someone said that I should never wish my kids older, because it happens on its own, and sooner than you think. That person was so right.