Well, Phase III went pretty well, all considering.

I’m talking about that dreadful chore of getting ready for school.  It’s really broken down into three phases.  Let me explain.

Phase I is the physical stuff … clothes and hair.  Everybody needs a haircut, and everybody needs at least a few new clothes to get started in the new year, right?

Since my son has grown a couple of inches over the summer, both in his feet and in height, almost nothing fit.  And of course, we moms aren’t going to buy new tennis shoes in July, because by the time school starts, they’ll already be junky looking.  So, we make them stuff their feet into their old shoes until August.  And my daughter ALWAYS “needs” new clothes.  Her closet is full but she still has nothing to wear, she says.

So, we did the school-clothes-shopping thing until I was unconscious.  The hair thing was a whole ‘nother story.  My daughter highlighted her own hair and then had to go get it fixed because it turned out with blonde polka dots here and there.  My son’s haircut was, well, not what he had in mind.  Looks like we’ll have to be getting that fixed here pretty soon, too.

Phase II is getting the sleep patterns back in order.  Unless you have one of those rare teenagers who loves mornings and hates staying up late, you’re with me here.  As the summer goes on, the hour of bedtime creeps later and later, and so does the hour of waking up.  I would bomb my kids out of bed at 11 a.m.  Two hours later I would catch one of them “taking a nap”, which only means they never really woke up in the first place. 

So, somehow between last week and now, we had to work on waking up skills.  And staying awake skills.  And going to bed skills.  Phase II was only moderately successful at my house.

Phase III is “The First Day of School”.  This includes (a) looking like a million dollars before they leave the house, (b) making it to school on time, (c) obtaining their schedule of classes, (d) finding their classrooms, and (e) buying all the school supplies they need by Day Two.

Looking like a million dollars on the first day requires a little more time than usual, so they have to wake up a little bit earlier than usual, which, of course, is difficult because of Phase II described above. 

Making it to school on time depends on if they woke up early enough (to get themselves looking like a million dollars), and how many trips back home they had to make because of the stuff they forgot.  We made only one trip back home.

Getting their schedules can be easy, or it can be a nightmare.  One year my daughter waited in line for hers, only to find there wasn’t one with her name on it.  The computer has a mind of its own, it seems, and every year selects a few students to omit.  They ended up giving her a schedule that belonged to a student they knew wouldn’t be returning, but of course it had all the wrong classes on it. 

The older they get, the less panicked they are about finding their classrooms.  Both of my children were at schools this year they had already attended, so this part went without a hitch.

But the school supplies.  OH.  MY.  GOSH.  I can’t tell you how I dread this trip every year.  We went to one store that usually has great stuff and small crowds, but this year their stock was limited.  So, to my dismay, we trekked to Walmart, along with everybody else in town, to dive into the raging river of bodies flooding the school supply aisles.  Digging, grabbing, yelling, searching, pleading, and spending, spending, spending.

Folders WITH brads, marbleized theme books, notebooks with tear-out pages, notebooks without tear-out pages.  One-inch notebooks, half-inch notebooks, notebooks for every class.  It made me dizzy just reading the lists.

The good news is my kids are old enough now to find this stuff by themselves.  I gave them each a basket and sent them into the chaos.  I went to the greeting card section and read funny cards.  I laughed and laughed.

Oh, I know they took advantage of my not being there.  I know they got the pretty notebooks that I don’t usually let them get because they cost more than the ugly ones.  And I noticed some pretty cool-looking pens and pencils coming out of the bags.

But I didn’t care, for once.  I got to read funny cards.  I didn’t get a headache.  I’m calling Phase III a resounding success.