Back To School

At Addison’s sixth grade graduation last May, I realized that this Fall, for the first time in sixteen years, I won’t have a child in elementary school. Then I did some more quick math and discovered that by the time Scarlett goes to junior high, I will have had at least one child in the primary grades for twenty-three years out of a twenty-six year span. What am I supposed to do with that?! I love school, I truly do, but the thought of more than two dozen school supplies shopping trips is a bit overwhelming. Just the sheer number of backpacks I will have purchased in that timeframe boggles the mind, not to mention taking a hefty bite out of the bank account. There is something about that first day, though, isn’t there? There is an anticipation in the days right before a new school year begins that is unlike any other. You’ve got new clothes, which you can’t wear yet, and all those new pencils, erasers, and pens just begging to be used. It’s still summery outside, with the sky staying light much later than bedtime, and sleeping in still seems like a good idea. Waiting to use a new lunch box or wear new shoes was torture, and I willed the days to go faster (one aspect I’ve outgrown). In Kathleen W. Zoehfeld’s My First Winnie-the-Pooh Growing Up Stories, the Hundred Acre Wood gang gets ready to go back to school. I wonder who buys their backpacks.

http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Winnie-Storybook-Collection-Collections/dp/0786834447

http://www.ranker.com/list/kathleen-w-zoehfeld-books-and-stories-and-written-works/reference