Getting ready

While we were off on the weekend - another long weekend for us, thanks to my company's flex work policy, one that they just announced is being extended from a summer-only thing to a year round thing (more to come on that later) - anyway, we took Liam out shopping for a backpack for school. His school supply list for this year is pretty short: a spare change of clothes, some indoor shoes, a box of tissue, and a backpack. He was pretty excited to do this, and we hyped it up and told him he could choose whatever he wanted.

We wound up at the discount store that is closest to our house, and it turned out to be a good choice, because they had three aisles full of backpacks. (I am not too concerned about quality here. The straps may not have the thickest padding you've ever seen, but this is JK we are talking about - he is not going to be lugging textbooks around.) And Liam really enjoyed trolling those aisles and comparing them. Mallory came with us, too, and though she found a Madagascar bag that she then insisted on dragging around the store while Liam made up his mind - she understood completely when we put it back and said she would have to wait until she starts school before she can have one.

Liam had almost settled on a Spiderman bag (surprise, surprise) when he found this Pirates of the Caribbean bag. And that was that - he wanted it. He has never seen Pirates of the Caribbean, but I think we are so sick of all things Spiderman that we welcomed the change. We will have to take him on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney. (Let's just hope that he likes it.)

The bag came complete with a matching lunch bag, so I am (temporarily at least) shelving the plans to buy him the double-sided lunch bag for the balanced day. I am going to cook up some sort of divider or way of letting him know what to eat during Nutrition Break #1 and what to save for Nutrition Break #2.

He wore the backpack through the store to the checkout, where it was bagged, but he immediately dug it out of the bag and put it on again. Wore it out to the parking lot, took it off to get buckled into the car, then it went back on again at home. Right now it is hanging on a hook in his cubby, waiting for the first day of school. It's coming up soon, and to make it seem that much more real, we got our classroom assignment last week: Liam is a B Day student (Tuesdays/Thursdays) and his teacher is Mrs. Garrow. Bring it on!