The Inevitables of Back to School

Looking at the adorable has me smiling.  I can grin actually, even though the inevitable little pitfalls about the first days of the school year, and the run up to them, are already happening.

Parents, if you have a kid in school, you have have likely run into these little “inevitables” or will soon.

I’ll list what I think they are anyway, for commiseration or warning, take your pick.  

“The Inevitables--Back to School”

1. No matter how early you venture out to shop for the required school supplies, there will be a crowd of frazzled parents and unhappy children already there when you arrive.  One of those parents will be ready to fight you to the death for the last non-”Hello Kitty” binder.
2. You will wonder, perhaps for the tenth year, why you didn’t do this all on Amazon.
3. Your child will need new shoes.  Seriously.  Your pride and joy has grown so much over the Summer that sending him/her to school in last year’s sneakers will trigger a visit from the County’s Department of Human Services.  If you have a boy in Middle School, he will have grown surfboards instead of regular feet.
4. Your progeny will wear her/his new sneakers to the nearest mud puddle sometime before their actual debut in front of teachers and school officials.
5. No alarm, other than your determined bed shaking, will wake your kid up at dawn on the first day of school.  This is because your resolve to get everyone to bed earlier during August was roundly ignored.
6. The bus will show up early.  You will scramble.
7. Your offspring will have an interesting version of what they did all Summer to tell in class.  Forgotten will be the museums and surf lessons and crafting classes to which you dragged your little culture creature.  He/she will tell tales of playing X-Box and sitting on the couch while Mom and Dad went to numerous clubs and parties.
8. Older students are expected in most districts to read two books over the Summer.  Your bookworm will actually finish both books, the last few pages on the school bus first day.
9. You’ll get a note sometime the first week from a teacher, saying that your child still needs ________ (fill in book or materials you had no idea they’d need).  You will have to go back to the store to get it and stand in the check out line with many many other parents.  The woman who fought you for the binder will be in line behind you, complaining loudly.
10. Sometime during the year, one of the teachers will tell you something great about your child.  You know how wonderful your kid is, but it’s nice to hear he/she is successful in school.

These are my “Inevitables” for back to school.   Everyone has their own experiences.  For instance, my 15-year old is planning on saying he did nothing all Summer.  He thinks it’s unbearably unshareable that he spent the Summer being a roadie for a rock'n roll band at the hottest clubs in the Hamptons and Jersey Shore.

Did these inevitables happen to you?  Do you have other Inevitables?