Back to school

My husband looked at me strangely when I shared how excited I’d be when June would come by. As excited as I would be every schoolyear for summer to arrive, I would also eventually get bored and restless with the hot days of doing too little and not being able to see my friends. Enrollment usually happens around May, and that meant the commencement of many things: preparing for a new schoolyear and who knew what it would bring? At the very least, it meant new things, i.e. new items — shopping for school supplies, new socks and shoes (sounds so mundane, but we had uniforms), school bags, sometimes a new wallet, notebooks and pens and cases. It was the newness of it all — the beginning of something — that made me look forward to school.

I graduated many, many years ago and I don’t think I’ll ever be back in school; not as a student, anyway. But I did just go through enrollment: My little Matthew is off to preschool in some three weeks!

After paying and registering, I was handed a list of items to prepare and turn over for the year: art supplies, toiletries, and even a pillow!

I want him to be excited about school, and putting aside the commercialism of the exercise, shopping for school (I think) will help signal that he is entering a whole new stage. It’s not once-a-week playschool anymore. It’s not just one-hour classes. It’s a bit of growing up, though in tiny baby steps.

The mall beckons tomorrow. I can’t wait. I hope my giddiness rubs off him in the process.