Aitch has a folder in his backpack that, traveling between school and home, serves as a kind of drop box for communications between his teacher and us. Every afternoon when he comes home I take out the flyers, worksheets, and order forms, and then I load it back up with all the completed paperwork and tchotchkes that Aitch needs to return to school.

These are the kinds of things I have to deal with on a weekly basis:

  • Lunch order form and money envelope
  • School photo order form (I was soooo tempted just to throw it away. I mean, back in the day school pictures were a big deal, but that was before we had digital cameras, Photoshop, and 10 cent prints. What skill or materials could the school photographer possibly contribute that would be worth a $95 package?)
  • Book order form
  • Demand for $5 for a project to paint t-shirts in conjunction with a book they are reading (not phrased as optional; what do people do if it doesn’t fit into their budget?)
  • Reminder that library books are due on Friday
  • Homework worksheet (practice writing child’s name five times; child is also required to put his name at the top of the page and “sign” at the bottom)
  • Request to re-do worksheet that child got wrong in class (coloring circles blue, squares red, and triangles green; he colored them all different colors)
  • Request for a “small object” starting with the letter A for “letter of the week.”
  • Reminder to send in the ingredient lists for all food child eats at school for snack
  • Catalogue and order forms for PTO fund-raiser (I threw it in the trash and wrote them a personal check; I will volunteer, donate, or tithe, but I will NOT push gift wrap on unsuspecting friends and neighbors)
  • Request to nominate PTO officers (this precipitated a round of calls among mothers begging, “Please don’t nominate me”)

This daily scavenger hunt is quickly becoming a part-time job for me, albeit one that costs, rather than pays. In the past two weeks I’ve put at least a hundred bucks in that damn folder.