By Andrea Marlene of BumbleBirdBlog.com
Every year your child’s school sends home a list of supplies that you need to buy in order for your child to be successful in the coming year. And every year it costs an atrocious amount of money and takes a ludicrous amount of time to acquire all of the items on that list.
Some of those items your child will lose the first week of school. Others your child will never use at all. So, in an effort to help you during this frustrating time, here is a list of requested items that your school should have sent home. They are the things that your child actually needs for this coming school year.
You’re welcome.
492 Glue Sticks. Previous lists suggest 2 but our experience has shown that glue sticks are the most common “lost” item and consequently you can expect your child to go through much more than 2. Our precise calculations have shown that 492 is a reasonable expectation.
1 white, 72 paged, half lined/half blank 7×9 scribbler. We are not going to tell you what this is or where to buy it. Good luck!
Indoor shoes. Because with outdoor shoes, rain boots, winter boots, and shoes for your child’s extracurricular sports activities multiplied by the number of kids you have, we thought, “Wow, parents really love shoe shopping with their kids!” So we added indoor only shoes to your list. That’s how much we care about your happiness.
A change of clothes. Not good ones, though, because you will never, ever see them again.
Shower caps. Because we are no longer checking for lice or sending home lice warning letters. We figured prevention was the better approach.
A reliable morning alarm. We have decided to move the start of the school day to 5:47 A.M. because the bus company charges us less to run at a time when no sane person should be awake. We are aware that it is nearly impossible to wake your child so early in the morning. Please set the alarm an hour before your child needs to get up so that you can be up super early in order to spend an hour every morning repeatedly attempting to wake your child.
A box of facial tissues. We are aware that these can be bought super cheap, especially in bulk, but we just can’t find the room in our budget (don’t ask us where the money we saved on buses is being spent because we won’t tell you).
Air freshener. This one is at the request of some our teachers. But we’re sure that it’s not your kid who smells.
Extra soap. In case it is your kids who smells.
Wine. No, we are not suggesting you give your children wine. This one is purely for your benefit. Because after you’ve finished shopping for all of the other things on this list, you’re going to need it.
Happy Shopping!
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About Andrea Marlene
Andrea Marlene lives in Canada and is a wife and stay-at-home mother of three. She blogs about finding meaning in the mundane aspects of life at bumblebirdblog.com and you can also find her on Facebook at facebook.com/bumblebirdblog.