Know & Tell Friday: Back-to-School Edition

In honor of kids everywhere, Heather and Reese have decided to mark this week's Know & Tell Friday with a Back-to-School Edition. I'm sure that there is much weeping and gnashing of teeth going on all over the country about now. Some kids like school, some kids love school, some kids despise school, and some don't care. But it's definitely a privilege that children, both boys and girls, get to attend school in our county. I wish they all realized that. It's not everywhere in this world that it would be happening in this day and age, and less than a century ago it wouldn't have been a given in our country, not even necessarily a likelihood.

Heather and Reese said that if we didn't have kids, to answer the questions for ourselves. Well, I have kids, but I homeschool, so some of the questions may be difficult to answer. So I may just answer the questions for both my kids and myself. We may end up with a jumbled up hodge-podge of writing with lots of digression, so prepare yourselves. Oh, sorry, you're used to that.

1. How far in advance do you start getting ready for back-to-school (whether for your own kids, or for yourself when you were in school)?

We don't do back-to-school clothes shopping, because it's simply not a necessity. I just have to get ready "school" wise. Let's just simplify things by saying I am starting next week and I don't even have everything I need yet. And what I don't have has to be ordered. The Big (Albeit Temporary) Move threw me a Big Loop. I usually start preparing when school is done from the previous school year and spread it out so I don't have to stress out right before it's time to start. Like now.

I don't remember ever doing any advance preparation for back-to-school when I was in school. I grew up way before the time when Wal-Mart dedicated a whole little cardboard bin thing for school lists. Shows my age?

2. Do you have any picky eaters who need special considerations for lunches? What does a typical bagged lunch look like in your house?

Well, no bag lunches for the obvious reasons. When we lived in Illinois and went on Fridays to co-op we would sometimes take a bagged lunch. But I honestly don't even remember what we took now. Lunch is often "if you can find it, you can eat it," but I will help out those that need it or offer to make something. I need to add my lunches to my menu planning, but then I will probably end up with kids that are unhappy with those choices and they'll end up fixing something else for themselves anyway. I might give it a try when we get moved and settled, oh, about next year sometime.

I didn't take bagged lunches very much when I was growing up, but I honestly don't know why, because I am a picky eater. In junior high I ate a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos every day with a diet soda (probably Tab) because they still let you have the machines with the junk food in them. In high school I would go through the hamburger line every day and eat a hamburger, ketchup only, every day, with fries. I'm slightly a creature of habit. Not that you hadn't maybe figured out that I might be.

3. What school supply items do you skimp on and what are you willing to shell out the big bucks for?

I skimp on notebooks and three-ring binders. I buy tons of the 10 cents, which are now 5 cents, notebooks for my three right-handers. I will spend more and buy top-ring notebooks for Chatty, my lefty. I buy the plain white D-ring binders with a drop-in front, so they can be customized. If I need a lot for a new school year and I don't have some cleaned out from previous years, I will buy a bulk package at Sam's Club.

I am more willing to shell out the big bucks for textbooks, or more specifically books. We use Tapestry of Grace, which is a literature-based curriculum, for History, Literature, Worldview, Geography, Writing (it can also be used for vocabulary, art enrichment, etc., but I haven't figured out how deep I'm going with it yet this year). We basically have to make sure we have something else for Math, Grammar/Spelling, and Science/Health, plus electives. You don't have to buy the books that are used, but some are used for more weeks than you'd be able to check them out of a library. Plus you repeat the curriculum every four years, and since I have younger boys that will use books I buy for my girls now, I'm willing to purchase. That's where my splurges are right now...books.

Showing my age once again, I don't remember having many special choices when I was growing up. If I had the 64 box of crayons with the sharpener, I was in heaven.

4. Do you get your kids up, or do they get up on their own? Any snooze-hitters that have trouble waking up? How about the opposite, any kids that are up at the crack of dawn?

My kids will usually get up on their own. I'm the snooze-hitter that has trouble waking up. Now that they're older, none of them are usually up at the crack of dawn. Of course, when they were little and required constant care and couldn't fend for themselves, that's when they were up at the crack of dawn.

5. Any cafeteria horror stories? Is school food as bad as they say?

I remember in elementary school spitting my milk right back in my carton when I realized it was soured. Then in high school there were two lunch hours. The one I wasn't in had a food fight, and my English teacher who was eight or nine months pregnant got hit in the stomach with one of the plastic trays when the lights got hit. I have no idea what school food is like now. I have no frame of reference.

6. How important is it to you to make sure your kids have the latest styles and trendiest accessories?

It's not. And I think that I would answer the same way even if they went to public school. They go to church and I don't worry about them wearing the latest styles and trendiest accessories. I just want them to be dressed modestly, but age-appropriately at the same time.

7. Remember the movie Kindergarten Cop? If Arnold Schwarzenegger was your child's new kindergarten teacher, how would you feel?

When I saw the picture, my first thought was, "I love that movie. It's one of my favorite movies." And it really is. When I saw it on a used copy sale table at a video store many years ago, I bought it. Because I loved it that much. That was before DVDs. Then I saw it on DVD in a $5 bin, probably at Wal-Mart, and snatched it up in something like two seconds. I love Arnold in that movie. The first time I saw it I just laughed and laughed.

Then I read the question. Wow. Stereotypes. If I walked in and saw a big, burly guy like that, I might be slightly worried. Okay, really worried. But I have the benefit of knowing how the movie turns out. And if he was like the character in the movie, he'd be okay in my book.

That's it for this week's questions. I know how I'm spending my weekend. Opening up boxes in the garage. Figuring out what I need to copy at the copy store. Ordering textbooks/workbooks. Pulling my hair out. Well, I'll try to be selective and just get the gray ones. PRAYING! Because that's the way any of this is really going to work out where we can actually have any semblance of order come Monday morning. Oh, and I'm not doing any of this, except the praying part, until I finish The Shack.

If you hung around this long, go check out all the KATF fun at Kickin' It In Crazyville. I'm sure everyone else is a lot more prepared than me. It may relax your nerves to read theirs.