Back to School Blues for the Kids!...or Bliss for the Mamas!

It’s that time of year where it looks like a tornado has hit the school supply sections at your local Wal-mart and Target. It’s kind of an area that you should enter at your own risk. I took both of my girls to Wal-mart and the LONG list of supplies to do the shopping. I was near insanity as I left because it is just too difficult to think straight with two little ones in the chaos! I was seriously ready to hurt somebody if they could not just help me find the BLUNT tip FISKAR scissors…sounds simple enough…but it took twenty minutes and a lot of moving boxes around! Honestly, though, the “teacher” in me gets truly giddy when I get to buy school supplies! My husband (aka SANTA) even puts pens, markers, etc. in my stocking each year!

I sat debating last night whether or not to label things with her name on it. Usually, due to the easiest way of managing a multitude of children, the teacher will simply use the supplies as a “community” resource for the students. My dilemma was…to label or not to label? As a teacher, I did it both ways. I ended up labeling her crayons and such that I felt like they would probably leave in her box. Everything else, I labeled on the outside of the packaging. The best thing to do is warn your kids that these are for the class not necessarily just for them. Then, you avoid a serious meltdown when your child melts down when some other kid is using those green BLUNT tip FISKAR scissors that we spent FOREVER looking for in the store!

I have spent lots of time over the last week researching ways to get organized for back to school. I know the perspective from the teaching side, but now, I have a totally new one on the mama front! From both of those perspectives and from ideas I liked through "stealing", here are my ideas to help get the school year started off right…

1. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT…at least POSSIBLE: Practice going to bed on time and getting up on time for school. (We haven’t mastered this quite yet! Mama likes to sleep in and thinks it a sin to wake up sleeping children…even if I will pay for it next week!)
   


2. HAVE A MORNING ROUTINE: For me, with little ones, that means I get up first and get dressed. I do whatever I was supposed to do the night before—pack lunch, snack, check backpacks, pack sippy cups, find uniforms or clothes, etc.
   


3. HAVE A SPOT FOR EVERYTHING: It works for us to have a crate and/or a hook for everything. In the school crate (2.50 at wal-mart) is where book bags go, lunchboxes, show and tell item, whatever we need for school. In a soccer crate, we put cleats, socks, uniform, ball, etc. I even take them out of the crate to wash them and put them back in. Yes, I need it as much as the kids do or I would be looking EVERYWHERE for it! At the same place, I keep hooks with rain jackets, an umbrella, sweater or jacket for whatever the weather is like.
   


4. BE PREPARED!: I know that we will always forget something in the midst of our drama so I have learned the HARD way to be prepared. Yes, I have been the one that forgot her kid's shoes and took her to church. I have forgotten a spare diaper (But had EVERYTHING ELSE KNOWN TO MAN) and had to wrap her baby around and around with towels from the dispenser in the bathroom of chick-fil-a just to make it home! Pack a little box with wipes, Tylenol, diapers, extra clothes, tissue, sanitizer, (extra shoes because we seem to get out regularly without them!), extra sippy, snack, juice box, etc.. It never fails that something you need will not be with you…your best luck is to roll with punches and think fast! I get in a bind when I use something from the bucket and forget to replenish it…or when my husband takes it out of the car when he is vacuuming it!
   


5. BE A PROUD MAMA! Have a place to hang up some of your child’s artwork! A couple years ago, I saw the cutest thing and kind of copied it in my daughter’s room. It’s just wooden clothes pins that I painted with cute little wooded items hot glued on the ends (Michaels Art Store for 25 cents). It matches her room, and she loves to have her school stuff hanging up there…Our fridge appreciates that it is not the sole display unit now! If you don’t have a spot for it, the amount of stuff they bring home will overwhelm you! Have a plan for what you are going to save and keep too!
   


6. HAVE A MAMA SPACE: You are the dictator of this domain! This is usually our fridge or our garage door that faces our kitchen. Have a spot to put a calendar to note when show and tell is, when it’s your turn to bring snack, field trips, special days, etc.. As a teacher, I had many of kiddos desperately upset (at least for that week) that they FORGOT their show and tell item or their book report. For little ones, it’s our job to start implementing how to keep organized and keep track of this kind of stuff. The older they get…you can have them have their own calendar, but you are still the calendar dictator!
   


7. BE LOOKING FOR THE SLUMP: The beginning of the school year brings excitement and anxiety. By about week three or four, all that is over. All that is left is sleepy, tired, and grumpy little ones that are over getting up early and missing the freedom days of summer. As a teacher, that was when it was the toughest! Be prepared for the slump and maybe it will go smoother!
   

There are a lot more GREAT ideas, but I think these are the best basic ones! We’ll be trying them out this year! We mamas need all the help that we can get so it can’t hurt to try it! It’s a lot easier to try to get organized at the beginning and stick with it than try it in the middle of the year! A break (even though it’s a short four hours three days a week!) sounds quite wonderful at this moment! Pure Back to School Bliss for this MAMA!

Mama Drama Rule #5: Don’t be too hard on the teacher in the beginning! Remember, she’s trying to get settled with new kids…learn all their names…learn all their parents’ names…learn what drama goes along with kid—custody issues, peanut allergies, etc—who knows what, make sure everybody gets home at the end of the day, convince the screaming child holding onto mama that it really is okay, and still has to suffer through the mama looking in the window every ten minutes. (Yes, I will resist the temptation…or at least try…this year. I completely caught myself doing it at mom’s morning out last year. I felt so guilty that I had become one of THOSE parents!)