Back to school

It’s been quite a week.  The Eleven Year Old and The Four Year Old have both started their new schools.  I for one was anxious, about ‘THE FIRST DAY’, but also quietly confident that they would be brave and find their way through the confusing onslaught to the senses and emotions that new experiences such as these bring.

It seems slightly surreal to me that I can remember my own experiences of starting both Primary and Secondary school so vividly and yet already I have children who are now going through this themselves.  Am I really that old.  Yes I am. 

I have been asked on many occasions what I will do with all this spare time that I will now surely have on my hands.  Well, first and foremost, I plan to give myself a little rest after the trauma of getting two boys equipped and ready for this week.  DO NOT underestimate how much effort and concentration – not to mention cash – is required to kit out two children to start new schools.

If I was fond of a particular type of shorthand, which I’m not, then I would most probably at this point, be saying OMG.

School trousers.  Three pairs each.  For the bigger boy black, smaller boy navy.  Only days before ‘THE FIRST DAY' I had two pairs of the WRONG COLOUR trousers for The Four Year Old and three pairs of the right coloured trousers in the WRONG SIZE for the Eleven Year Old.  Polo shirts with the school logo on and also sweatshirts with the school logo on. Obviously.  One for just about each day of the week – give or take a day or two - should cover it.  PE Kit.  Apparently at Secondary School it becomes necessary to do PE still wearing a polo shirt adorned with the school logo which will then be covered up by the logo-ed sweatshirt but in a different colour to the actual day-to-day uniform.  Of course.  At the age of four any old white t-shirt and black shorts will apparently do for PE as long as they are accompanied with the obligatory black pumps.  Which brings me on to the issue of shoes.

SHOES.

FIVE PAIRS between the two of them of new pigging shoes. And that’s not even counting the two pairs waiting to be shipped back to a well know brand of high quality sportswear retailer.  

More precisely, one pair of shoes, two pairs of trainers, a pair of pumps and a pair of astro turf trainers.  Let us not forget the ‘too small’ astro turf trainers and gym trainers ordered to fit the largest-feet-in-the-house-already feet of The Eleven Year Old which he outgrew whilst holidaying in the Lake District with his Dad.  Whose feet grow a whole size in three weeks?!

You would think the madness would have ended there.  But no.  Having purchased in the final hour the day before ‘THE FIRST DAY’ the required footwear for Eleven Year Old, The Husband and me then proceeded to colour in, with a combination of a biro and marker pen, the logos to ensure the said new and not cheap footwear complied with school uniform rules.  Have we lost our minds?  Possibly.

But you know what?  We would have done absolutely anything to help smooth the way for these two boys of ours to be feeling as confident as possible as they walked in to school that first day.  It’s just what you do isn’t it ? 

’Cos we’re the parents now…even if it does sometimes feel like we ourselves should be going back to school too.