vis a vis what?

I feel like every year we have to buy school supplies earlier and earlier. We learned the hard way last year that if you don't get your supplies almost immediately after the stores put them out than you will be the kid showing up to back-to-school night with excuses like "The store was sold out of that brand..." and "We honestly went to every store in a 50 mile radius and NO ONE had finger paints..." So, being the overly anal, rule follower that I am as soon as I saw the back-to-school ads we printed a list and made our annual school supply shopping trip to Target. We were probably there even earlier than normal this year, too though, because we were going on vacation the last two weeks of summer and so had to check this chore off our list before we hit the road.

Back-to-school shopping went pretty much as usual. The boys took WAY too long to pick out what color of spiral notebook they wanted and I broke a sweat searching for the right brand of pink erasers. To top off the shopping trip I almost had to google what a "soft tip vis-a-vis" pen was but thankfully Brandon saved the day. I seriously think we bought the last pack! Back-to-school shoppers are ruthless! The biggest change this year, and the moment that broke this mommy's heart, was when the boys' chose backpacks. Maddox went straight for his favorite characters and had a hard time choosing between Skylanders and Star Wars. Ash, though, decided against a character backpack for third grade and instead bought a basic black, skater-style backpack that even has a laptop slot on the inside! What!? Brandon laughed at me as I walked Ash up and down the backpack isle pointing out all of the "cool character" backpacks there were to choose from trying to make sure that he really didn't want one of those instead. This moment snuck up on me! My first born is growing up and I don't like it one bit!

Nearly 2 hours of our lives and $250 dollars later the boys had a shopping cart FULL of supplies! If you asked me what grade they are in I might accidentally say "Preschool and First Grade" but in reality they are in 2nd and 3rd grade. Ashtyn's teacher is named Mrs. Harper and Maddox's teacher is Mrs. Guidry. Both of the boys are having a great time this new school year. They love their teachers and even though I'd rather have them home playing all day long I have to admit so do I! Here's to another school year...even though it's a way too grown up, plain black backpack school year!