I remember the heart-wrenching moment as a new mom sends the first-born child off to the first day of school. The bus stops to collect him with his new backpack, filled with a one change of clothes, an unsharpened #2 pencil, and a bright purple folder.
And so, when the third child ventures forth, I find myself clinging to the poor child with frantic fervor—a parent desperate with the memory of the two who have gone before—a parent who knows that the time will come, all too quickly, when the little one will trip off unburdened by life, and return home needing eight folders in a rainbow of colors, four three-ring binders, two notepads, a dozen pencils, two reams of assorted paper, a calculator, six boxes of tissue, five red pens, and seven hundred pink erasers.[1]
A brand new, first-time kindergarten parent is naively ignorant of the warning that, “This is just the beginning.” The first-grader’s list of supplies reads like a back-to-school sale from Walleyworld and it escalates from there.
By the time they are teens, these children work out all summer long, growing buff and lean, not just to impress the opposite sex, but to face those first days of school when they must strap on the burdensome pile of required school supplies.
Reality Bite: By the last round, I’ve learned how to dodge the blows.
[1] Is there an eraser heaven? Have you ever seen any used erasers? Do they disappear into never-never eraser land?
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