I Caught the Wave

Every year it's the same thing. I go into a frenzy of spending because the doors to the school will open in a few weeks. I spend hundreds of dollars and the sad part is I don't even get to spend any of it on myself! You see, I labor under the delusion that all fall purchases must be made in August. That's right. Even though it's still a solid ninety degrees outside I am on the prowl for pants and sweaters. My kids won't be able to wear their new school clothes for a good 8 weeks but I have to have them all in my house now. And everybody must have all their wardrobe choices, pens, folders, glue sticks, and new lunchboxes purchased before the school year starts. And every year, I buy all this stuff and inevitably after the first week of school there is a new list of things we have to have that had I just waited two more weeks to buy I could have done in one fell swoop to Wal Mart.

I know I'm not the only woman in America who operates under these conditions. There's two weeks of summer left! Hurry, buy sweatshirts! Like any kid ever started school without cold-weather clothing and froze throughout the winter. Okay, I'm sure that has happened (sadly) but we are talking hypothetically for most of us. I think that maybe the reason for this is that mentally, once the kids go back to school, I go back to school. I'm all for teaching personal responsibility and accountability, but does anyone else out there think that there's no way a kindergartener can sign all those papers and get his own homework done? And how many of us have sworn we would never interfere in a school project and then jumped in at the last second or given advice when asked about how to finish an assignment? How many of you have kids with learning disabilities (like I do) and have to supervise every scrap of homework anyway?

Every day during the school year I dread the great backpack dump (it's like the complete opposite of a government bailout...everything comes out of the pockets, nothing goes in) and it's accompanying mess. Every year I start out strong and by April 28 I am so done with school that I send my kids to school in shoes with holes and lunches made of granola bars and Frosted Mini-Wheats. So that explains my logic with the Great School Spending Wave every August. The more I get done now, the less it will matter on April 28 when I am burned out. You have to ride the wave while it's here, because sooner or later you'll wipe out on the beach and have to use your back-up board to finish the race. So now I'm off to teach some personal responsibility and order my daughter to clean out the hairdo drawer so it's ready for the beginning of school.