48 Pencils

I cannot believe summer is almost over, but then, I can totally believe summer is almost over.  Yes, it flew by, but my frazzled self tells me that it really didn't fly by at all.  Starting September 5th I will have 2 kids in full day school.  Holy cow.  I had a friend ask me if I was ready for that and all I could say was, call me a bad mom, but yes I am!  I think summer vacation is just long enough to do all the fun things we want to do, but short enough that the kids and I don't kill each other before they go back to school.  I was going over our "Fun Things We Want To Do This Summer" list and found that we did over half the things we listed, three of which, I knew we wouldn't get done.  I just put them on the list hoping they would happen.  And they aren't even fun things, they are things I hope the kids will get over before they go off to college.  I also put take the kids to the eye doctor on the list.  Shad asked me to please hold off for a bit on that one until the sting of paying bills for my radiation and Bethany's trip to the ER with the dislocated elbow wears off.  So I guess that will have to wait. 

Today the kids and I went shopping for school supplies.  Taking Josh to the store is challenging about 75% of the time.  He either absolutely DOES NOT want to go, or he wants me to buy everything he sees, or he DOES NOT want to go and he wants me to buy everything he sees.  He actually did pretty well today.  Buying him an Angry Birds folder made him happy until he heard that Hannah needed to get 2 folders and he only needed one.  I made him put the folder with the Corvette back. 

While I was going down the list of supplies that the kids need for school, I was struck by two things.  First of all, how in the world is a 6 and 7 year old going to go through 2 dozen pencils each?  Seriously, do they really use that many?  I could see maybe 5, but 24?  Really?  And secondly, we can't buy our kids any glue sticks or Elmer's glue because it has to have an MSDS form.  Seriously, I am  pretty sure that Elmer's is non-toxic.  I have never heard of a kid dying from contact with, or even eating, Elmer's glue.  Whatever.

So I packed the supplies up nice and neat for Josh and Hannah.  I even sharpened all 48 pencils and put half in Hannah's pencil box and half in Josh's pencil box, like the good "soccer mom" that I am.  And in 16 more days I will send my two full timers off to school.  I look forward to the one-on-one time I will get with Bethany, but am I really ready to have 2 full time students?  Today, I say yes, but on September 5th, the tears in my eyes will tell another story.