Back-to-School Shopping

Unbeknownst to the other, Chris and I were each obsessively checking the website of Oliver's school for the 2015-2016 school supply list.  With our oldest starting kindergarten in the fall, we finally get to relive the excitement of a new school year with rites of passage, like back-to-school shopping.  Once the lists were posted, we enlisted Grandma Nan to watch the younger kids so that Chris and I could take Oliver out to dinner and then go buy his school supplies together.  He chose Punch Pizza and afterward we headed to Target. 

Buying school supplies has changed a lot since I was a kid.  In the days before big box stores, I remember shopping at Binkley's 5 & 10 or Rite Aid, where I hoped to score a cool Trapper Keeper.  I remember picking out supplies that are still staples today - pencils, pens, folders and notebooks - but I have no idea if we were given a list. 

Kids get lists these days.  Your local big box store probably even has the list from your kid's school. Oliver's kindergarten supply list contained about $70 worth of supplies, and that was before we bought new shoes, clothes, a lunchbox and a book bag. 

We also discovered the lists are very specific.  We couldn't just buy any crayons or markers, they had to be Crayola brand.  We had to buy a 9" x 12" dry-erase board, but Target only carried 8.5" x 11" or 10" x 14".  We decided we'd look on Amazon at home and moved on.  Next on the list were "two black, thin-tip, low-odor dry-erase markers", but the only ones we could find came in multi-color packages of four, with only one black marker in each.  I relented on the Crayola brand even though the frugal part of me thought the store brand would sufficiently serve the same purpose, but I decided we weren't buying two packages of markers.  Oliver would go off to kindergarten with two thin-tip, low-odor dry-erase markers, but one would be black and the other blue.  A friend with older children had warned me that we might have to go to multiple stores because the last item on your list will be a yellow, three-ring, two-pocket folder and the only colors left would be green.  With the exception of the dry-erase board, we found everything we needed. 

Even so, Oliver summed up the school supply shopping experience when he exclaimed, "Why does this school have to be so complicated!"