Yep, pretty stressful. For the exception of this year, I tend to buy school
supplies throughout the year and in the beginning of the summer when it is
not a hardship financially or on my sanity. However, with you being a first
timer in school, it would be very stressful since you didn't anticipate
having to need supplies. You will from now on, so perhaps you can be more
prepared. Our elementary finally did start sending a school supply list in
the beginning of the summer that I thought was helpful, but a little too
late for me as my kids are in middle and high school. Unfortunately, I
waited until the last minute this year and it was very crowded and
stressful, but the stores still had supplies. I don't buy supplies from a
grocery store, as they are too expensive. I buy them from places like
Target, Walmart, etc.. And yes, I had to have some wine Monday night to calm
my nerves. Chocolate doesn't do it for me ;o)

Scotch tape, just means any type of sticky tape and not something like
masking tape. It doesn't have to be that exact brand.

Now that I have bought the basics in school supplies, my 8th grader brought
home yet more specific supplies that she needs. Oy.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
. ..
If you want to get stressed, I have a good recipe...

...try to get school supplies on the evening before school starts!

I'm really grumpy, not being local, we didn't even know DS would need
school supplies until we got a list 10 days ago, let alone that said list
would be so rigid. We were on holiday last week so there hasn't been all
that much opportunity to shop for them and I'd glanced down the aisle at
the drug store and seen they had what I needed and decided to wait until I
had the list on me.

So off I go tonight to the local big supermarket, which is sold out of
almost everything I need, erasers of any colour were an empty section of
shelving, let alone getting the specified pink one (and why to you have to
get pink anyway - friends have told me that it's always been this way and
some of them started school 40+ years ago!). To make matters worse having
remembered to take the list with me, it somehow managed to escape from the
trolley between the entrance and school supplies aisle, so I don't even
have a difinitive list of what I'm trying to buy!

We also didn't find out until that same mailing that we needed a doctor
signed physical form, call our paediatricans to find that for the doctor
to sign it without seeing the child, they have to have had a physical
within the last year, and we'd missed that by two weeks, not that we
hadn't attempted to schedule a physical for a year after the last one, I
called at the end of April and we have an appointment in 3 weeks time
(that's a 5 month wait!).

If I find things this difficult when I speak the same language, how hard
must it be for a parent who doesn't have English as a first language? A
lot of this stuff is cultural, not language, even something like "a roll
of scotch tape" is none trivial, do you mean it has to be scotch brand, or
is that just what everyone calls sticky tape and if you do mean scotch
tape, there were at least 3 that passed for a roll of sticky tape
(transparent, gift wrap and magic). I can't claim us brits are any better
as we would likely say sellotape, which is also a brand name, to mean any
kind of tape, but then I've never seen such a prescriptive school supplies
list in the UK, so it probably matters less!

I had to buy a lot of chocolate to calm myself down. It's only orientation
tomorrow anyway. Local school district is on strike, so I bet we'll have
some very crazy parents soon, thankfully DS is in K based at a christian
preschool, so not effected by the strike.

DS has just got back from the drug store with all the things I couldn't
get at the supermarket - I've reminded myself exactly why I shop online.

Cheers
Anne