My kid's school needs an efficiency expert

So I’ve decided to take a mellow approach to the new day care. Mellow as in “let’s reserve judgment until after Kindergarten starts next week.” Not that Kindergarten makes televisions vaporize but I figure you can’t be watching television in Kindergarten. Right? Right. I also think there’s some lingering “I miss the old daycare where everyone adored my kids and everything was familiar and easy.” Changing takes time. I don’t understand how people do it all the time. It makes me profoundly sad. For example, day 2 at the new place my soon to be Kindergartener told me some kid kept telling her she didn’t want to play with her and I seriously felt a wave of sadness wash over me. On the other hand, day 4 at the new place she told me some boy told her she was his girlfriend and tried to kiss her. So who knows.

The next day when I picked her up she claimed they kissed. We haven’t decided if we believe it yet. She’s big on telling us wacky stories and then laughing like a loon at her own little joke. Can’t imagine where she gets that. But I digress.

In other news, I’ve been trying to wrap up school supply shopping in preparation for the Kindergarten open house this Thursday. The Kindergarten open house at which I stand a 97.65% chance of crying. I also stand a 99.37% chance of wondering “what happened to my baby” sometime during that same open house but that’s neither here nor there.

When I think of crying at that open house, perhaps I will just fill my head with thoughts of the idiotic school supply list compiled by her teacher. The list that included crap like 6 small boxes of crayons and pink construction paper in a funkadelic size that only one store stocks except they’re out of stock right now so oh well except no one I talk to seems to think the teacher will be happy with red because even though it seemed like the next best thing to pink the list does not ask for “the next best thing.”

Am I the only one that fails to understand why schools can’t charge us one fee and then just order whatever crap they want in bulk? Wouldn’t that be more efficient? And why are we buying little bitty boxes of crayons. Why can’t we buy giant boxes of them and give everyone a pencil box to hold some in. Seriously. What the hell.

The highlight of my school supply shopping though was crouching down in the marker aisle at Wal-Mart trying to make sure I’ve got the right kind of Crayola markers because sometime in the last 20 years they starting making no less than 57 different kinds of markers and all the boxes seem to look alike. Now they’ve got different kinds of color assortments and various sized tips. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy me some markers as much as the next 33 year old woman. Which is to say, I’m completely indifferent to them. But my kids like them so we own some. But do we need this many kinds? Am I missing out by not jumping on the pastel assortment train? Would my life be more complete if I had the small tipped neons?

Speaking of school related shopping, I’ve also been shopping for school uniforms. A lot of parents seem to rejoice in uniforms. Less shopping and easier to get dressed in the morning. I’m clearly a rookie. Because my kid’s drawers already have clothes in them and this uniform is just more work for me. I’m struggling with the shoes currently. They’re supposed to be black mary janes or white Ked’s style. I’m such an idiot I didn’t even realize anyone was still selling Ked’s style shoes. And if they are who’s wearing them? Because my kids wear Crocs year round. Because socks with Crocs in the winter is only ghetto for adults. For kids, it’s entirely acceptable.

Black mary janes seem destined for scuffing so I ordered two styles of Keds figuring I could bleach the hell out of them to keep ‘em fresh. But then they arrived too small for my kid’s feet. Seven days from the first day of school is a fine time to get shoes that don’t fit in the mail. This may require me to leave my house and enter a mall to shop. Again, annoying. I’d put my husband in charge of this operation except that man is so in the dark he commented that $20 for shoes for a 4 year old seemed like a lot. This from the guy that bought himself a 52 inch television two months ago. Right.