The school supply lists arrived on a Tuesday morning.
Three emails. Three attachments. One immediate sense that summer had ended without consulting me.
Jack needed six composition notebooks, twelve pencils, headphones, two boxes of tissues and a scientific calculator he would almost certainly lose before October.
Lily needed crayons, markers, glue sticks, colored pencils, watercolor paints and something called a “durable art smock.”
Max was not starting school.
This did not prevent him from needing everything.
“I need a calculator,” he announced.
“You’re four.”
“For my work.”
“What work?”
“Train work.”
Fine.
I opened the first list on my phone while standing in the kitchen. Then I opened the second and promptly forgot what was on the first. The third email was not a supply list at all. It was a reminder to complete six online forms using a password I had apparently created last year.
I forwarded everything to Ben with the message:
“School lists are here.”
He responded with a thumbs-up.
I waited.
Nothing else appeared.
A thumbs-up is not a plan. It is not even a sentence. It is a small yellow person placing the entire problem back in your hands.
“Are you buying some of this?” I wrote.
“Sure. What do they need?”
I forwarded the lists again.
Another thumbs-up.
This is why shared custody calendars should come with a project manager.
One list, two houses
School supplies used to be simple.
You bought the things on the list. You put them in the backpack. You sent the child to school.
With two houses every item produces an additional question.
Where will homework be done?
Which house keeps the calculator?
Does Jack need headphones at home as well as at school?
Who has the poster board when a project is suddenly due tomorrow?
Should both houses have colored pencils or are we expected to transport the same battered box across Astoria twice a week?
Our custody calendar works beautifully until real life gets involved. It can tell me where the children are sleeping. It cannot tell me where Lily left her purple folder.
Last year we tried moving everything between houses.
Every Friday the children packed school bags, overnight bags, chargers, favorite toys and whatever unfinished project had colonized the dining table.
Something was always missing.
Jack left his Chromebook charger at Ben’s.
Lily left her reading folder at mine.
Max was not even in school yet but still managed to lose one shoe during a handoff.
By October I had driven across town three times for objects nobody remembered owning until they were urgently required.
This year we needed a better system.
The things we now buy twice
I called Ben.
“We need duplicates.”
“Of what?”
“Basic homework stuff. Pencils, paper, glue, scissors.”
“Why do we need two pairs of scissors?”
“Because the scissors will always be in the other house.”
“We could just remember to pack them.”
I let the silence answer that.
We agreed to keep a small homework box in each house. Nothing elaborate. Just the things that cause the most trouble when they disappear:
- Pencils and an eraser
- Colored pencils
- Glue sticks
- Child-safe scissors
- Lined paper
- A ruler
- A pencil sharpener
- Spare headphones
- Poster board
We also keep pajamas, toothbrushes and basic clothes in both houses. Those are not school supplies but they become school problems very quickly when someone arrives on Sunday evening without clean socks.
The expensive items still travel with the children. We are not buying two Chromebooks or duplicating Jack’s calculator because he might leave one beneath the couch.
The backpack travels too.
In theory.
Shopping with three children
We went shopping on Saturday.
This was my second mistake. My first was taking all three children.
Jack had decided his old backpack was perfectly usable.
It was not.
One strap was hanging by three threads. The zipper only worked if you pulled it sideways while holding the bag at a specific angle. There was a crushed granola bar in the front pocket that may have been there since spring.
“It’s fine,” he said.
“It’s opening at the bottom.”
“That’s ventilation.”
Lily wanted a backpack covered in sequins that changed color when she rubbed them.
It cost almost twice as much as the plain one.
“But this one expresses me.”
“You’re six.”
“I still need to express myself.”
Max had found a lunch box shaped like a fire truck. He carried it through the store while making siren noises and shouting at people to move out of the way.
“You don’t need a lunch box,” I told him.
“Yes I do.”
“You’re not going to school.”
He stopped.
His face changed.
This was the first time it had occurred to him that Jack and Lily would be leaving without him.
“I go too.”
“You’ll go when you’re bigger.”
“I’m big now.”
“You’re getting bigger.”
“I do train work.”
I could see the collapse coming.
I crouched down and prepared to use everything I had learned during my attempt at calm parenting.
“You wanted to go to school with Jack and Lily.”
He nodded.
“That feels disappointing.”
“I need the fire truck.”
Of course he did.
The fire-truck lunch box came home with us.
I am calm. I am not made of stone.
The backpack rule
When we got home I wrote a short list and sent it to Ben.
The new rule is that the school backpack stays with the child.
Not on the kitchen floor. Not in the car. Not beside the door so it can be forgotten.
With the child.
Before every handoff we check for four things:
- Backpack
- School-issued device
- Charger
- Any paper that contains a deadline
Everything else can probably wait.
I also added both of us to the school email system. Last year most messages came only to me which made me the unpaid communications department for the family.
Now Ben gets the reminders too.
He called ten minutes after registering.
“Do they always send this many emails?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve had seven.”
“It’s been twenty minutes.”
“This seems excessive.”
I felt seen.
The first morning is still going to be chaos
None of this means we are prepared.
Lily will reject the clothes she chose the night before. Jack will remember a form at the exact moment we need to leave. Max will demand to wear his fire-truck lunch box even though he is staying home with me.
Someone will be unable to eat breakfast because the toast has been cut incorrectly.
That is why I have no intention of promising a stress-free school morning. I tried those ideas before in our old morning routine and learned that preparation helps but children remain involved.
The supply boxes are ready.
The backpacks have names inside them.
Ben has the school app.
I have written the first handoff on both calendars.
This is as organized as we are going to get.
The lists are checked off apart from one box of dry-erase markers. Apparently every parent in Astoria bought dry-erase markers on the same day.
Jack has accepted the new backpack.
Lily is expressing herself through sequins.
Max carries his fire-truck lunch box around the house with two wooden trains and half a cracker inside.
School has not started yet.
We have already lost four pencils.