The Mommy Slacker Strikes Again

Every June I tell myself that I'm going to be prepared and organized and, well, in essence, a Super Mom. No more of this harried, frenzied Mom with bugged out wild eyes and a mouth like a sailor. I'm going to print out their supply lists, have everything done weeks before school starts, and have all their shiny, new sneakers lined up in a row on the mat, awaiting the first day of school. I will win this year.

And I always start out great too. I remember to look in the Sunday flyers for what's on sale, comparing it against the lists to see what I need. I pick up a few things here and there, casual and organized. This year was great in that I already had most of my daughter's list (extra stocking up from previous year's good sales) and the few things that she needed were on sale the second week. The high school never likes to give lists so I bought duplicates of what he used last year to start us off.

Look at that! I'm organized! I'm in charge! I'm...still looking for stupid large glue sticks and wipes. Yes, the elementary lists like to throw us parents those curve balls in the form of those items that we're pretty sure are fabricated for the pleasure of watching parents scramble around like mice in a a maze, or something extremely specific. Which irritates me more than the items that don't exist. Why? The items that don't exist (or that I've tried 3 stores and couldn't find and gave up on) can happily be substituted with something else. The items that are specific are the ones I CAN find, I'm just irritated by. This year there are two annoying items on baby boy's list: 3 Large glue sticks (.77 oz, even though the list lost the decimal point and could really confuse some parent looking for 77 ounces of glue stick) and "a donation of wipes is appreciated".

The glue sticks piss me off because the large ones are NEVER on sale. The small ones? Fifty friggen cents from like July til September. My question is, would she mind if I just sent in 6 of the smaller ones? And if she does, do I care? It's friggen glue for cripes sake. I have absolutely no issues with sending in the wipes (I remember how grimy and germy those little hands are at this age.) but the whole thing just stymies me. Does she want  a travel size wipe container to keep at each kid's desk? Or a larger container to keep at her desk? Baby wipes or antibacterial? Personally, I thought baby wipes were great for sticky hands and faces but are these six year old kids going to be offended by using BABY wipes? (They're pretty sensitive about their old age.) There are too many questions. Even an additional 2 words could have cleared this matter up. A donation of antibacterial travel wipes is appreciated. See how easy that was?

So now there's just over 3 weeks (23 days, but who's counting?) until school starts and I realize two things: I still need to finish baby boy's supply list and oh yeah, they still need sneakers. And socks. And pants. And probably a new shirt or two. So much for organized, right? Next year I'm going to start in March. Surely that will give me enough time to get my act together. I hope.

My new nemesis.