Monday, August 18, 2008

Nothing Beats New Crayons

Oh, I love the smell of new, untouched crayons. Remember the pure pleasure of something brand new, just for you?

You may have guessed, but I was one of those kids who mostly LIKED going back to school. Not always, but mostly. And the best part was the new school supplies. If you read the Frugal? Or Cheap? post, you probably figured out that I didn't always get the newest, trendiest school clothes every August. (Which, in hindsight, was just as well. Being in the height of fashion back in 1987 was quite a travesty of style. Frugalness saved me from some of the worst.)

But school supplies? Brand new pencils? Mead Trapper Keepers that no one else had ever trapped anything in? Oh, those folders with the built in three-ring brass thingies (guaranteed to shred your paper, if you bothered to try and use them?) I loved them all.

Even today, my hubby has to restrain me when the back-to-school flyers start hitting just after Memorial Day (seriously, it's earlier every year). It can be a little touch and go - now, I have my own credit card and car. He'd never know - at least, not until the bills came due.

This year has been hard, because I've been setting up my own little Virgina-Woolf-room-of-my-own office for months. I can actually justify the trip to Staples by saying, "I need more paper - that last book was 635 pages!"

Now, honestly, I do not need a new ruler/protractor/compass combo, no matter how cute they are in new designer colors. Hell, I never needed them in school, but I got them every year anyway. And I want them now.

Blissfully, I have gotten a little help out in this. The toddler is in a new classroom, the three-year-old room - love the teachers, and they sent home a school supply list.

God bless those daycare ladies - a reason to go school supply shopping!

I bought poster paints and tape, pencils and scissors, markers and crayons. The toddler could have cared less, until we got to the crayons. Then his little eyes lit up, and he wanted multiple boxes. And heck, they were only 20 cents, so I bought four.

He colored with his aunts. He colored at the restaurant. He colors before story time. And now, he's not even peeling the wrappers off like he did last year. When I broke one (on accident, people!), he told me the other crayons were sad.

Maybe by next year, I can show him how to color evenly on all sides to keep them pointy.

3 comments:

lucylucia said...

I loved going school supply shopping when I was little too!! We would usually go a week before school started and I would pile everything up next to bed at night. I just loved those cardboard boxes that you stored your pen/pencils and crayons in.

Anonymous said...

I still love shopping for school supplies, but now I call them office supplies and must have tools of the writing trade. The colored pencils keep my terrains and kingdoms divided, and the crayons ===

:)

I just took my bug out to get her school supplies - she likes new school supplies too. :)

Anonymous said...

It was also suppose to say:

Toddler guilt trips - gotta love 'em. Bug still tries with the big sad puppy dog eyes. :)