Back to School. Yay. I wonder if Kayla's teachers realize how much it costs to purchase all the things they are requiring.

I found that all the stores that start with Wal have really good sales. That would be Walmart and Walgreens. On things Kayla doesn't need. Since the school has one set of books per classroom Kay will never take a book home, therefore negating the need for buy-one-get-three-free bookcovers. Buy one spiral notebook for $.89, get three free? Great, except they're not acceptable. Must purchase four *composition* books instead. In specific colors. BAH.

So we've purchased 1" blue binders, 1 1/2" black binders with a matching 1" black binder, red 1" binders---all with matching composition books, a set of dividers for each class (at $3.00 a pop), highlighters, a set of colored pencils for each class with matching pencil sharpener, for geography two purple pens and two green pens (WTF?), and one teacher requested a set of dry erase markers for the classroom from each parent. Whatever happened to CHALK?

I reckon it's cost almost $60.00 and that's only for one semester. When I was in school, back in the day when we walked barefoot in the snow nine miles uphill both ways...I think we had one notebook and some paper. Holy crap!!

So Kay has a mini Office Depot in her back pack. It's a cute back pack...denim...Rob found a great sale and got me two of them for $3.00 each, so when one gets trashed she's already got another one put away. It probably weighs 50 pounds, but we assumed she'd be able to use a locker during the day.

The school is not using lockers this year. Kay has come to me many times, asking me if I've heard about the studies that show that too-heavy back packs can hurt childrens' backs. On Thursday she came to me, pulled down her shirt and showed me the red marks on her shoulders that were caused by the back pack. Oh the drama!

Yesterday we went back to the Wal store and purchased another back pack. One with wheels and a handle. Kay picked out the most expensive one because...well because...*It rolls real good*. Right.

After the first day of school she came to me and informed me that the band director said she needed to have an oboe by Monday. The school rents clarinets and flutes for $35 a year. Kay's choice of instrument is based on which instruments sit in the front of the band. Clarinets and flutes sit in the front, so they are right out for her. She didn't want to learn trumpet, which is unfortunate because Andrew played trumpet and we have two of those.

Our on-line sources for instruments were rather expensive in the oboe department...they start at around $1600.00. I called Bringe music in downtown St. Pete and they had one used oboe on consignment for $400.00, so we rushed down there to purchase it. Kay had better like the oboe. A Lot.

Bringe had a few djembes in a display in the front of the store so I asked our salesman who does their tuning and repairs. He said he didn't have anyone at the moment. What a coincidence,eh? So he was trying to sell me oboe accessories and service plans at the same time I'm trying to sell him on drum repairs. Heh. It was cool.

A few days after my purchase, he mailed us a thank you card and included a note about stopping by and leaving some of our business cards so I'll run by there one day next week.