Today was the first day of school for my kids, and Nathan finally got to wear his new shoes. They’ve been in his closet for more than a week now — still in the box — and he’s tried a hundred ways to talk me into letting him wear them early, but I stand firm: new shoes only on the first day of school. (It’s similar to my rule of: no wearing Halloween costumes until Halloween.)
The anticipation this builds is unbeatable. Nathan was up at 6 a.m. — even though school didn’t start until 9:25. But he was up, with his new shoes on by about 6:07. He couldn’t wait. He also had on his new socks, new jeans and new shirt, and had his new backpack all packed up with his new school supplies.
Everything’s so fresh and new — a fresh start and a new school year.
And nothing beats this smile:
All because of those shoes.
Do you remember starting the school year with fresh new things? What did you most look forward to? A new outfit? A new haircut? Fresh-sharpened pencils and clean, blank paper? What gave you that biggest feeling of “starting fresh”?
Well, Laurie, er…um…I mean, Mizwrite, you captured our little boy so perfectly! I still am chuckling about him knocking on our door so early that morning ready for his day and it was still dark out.
I was never really excited for the new school year to start but I did enjoy all the new school supplies!
This was an interesing read. I’ll start with my kids. Superman and his brothers were something else to get ready for school. They all acted like they were ready and excited to go, at least at home. I just think it wasn’t cool to show it to your friends. They always had new clothes to wear and supplies like you never saw. They “needed” stuff like crazy. The funny part of it is that a lot of that “needed” stuff never made it out of the house. Clothes on the hand, that was something else, they claimed they never had enough or exactly what they “needed”. By the end of the second week they just wanted the same thing over and over again. For the longest time I ran all over town and other places looking for the “right” kind of Van’s. Apparently it was a law they had to have Van’s or they couldn’t go to school. But I think the most challenging job was finding the “right” cleats and shin guards for soccer. And later for football and baseball.
Now as for me. In those days we didn’t know what sneakers were. We called them “tennies” for tennis shoes. There were tennies for school, tennies for baseball, and tennies for basketball. My dad swore on PF Flyers. When he was growing up that was the tennies he wanted and couldn’t get, because they were too expensive. So that is what we got for school. There was another brand we really wanted, that was Keds, but Dad thought that unless we got PF Flyers, he wasn’t a good provider. These were all high tops and black. No way we were going to wear low tops or heaven forbid, white ones, unless you were on the basketball team. Those were for the uncool kids, not the manly ones like us. All the way through Jr. High, it was Levi’s or Wrangler jeans and PF Flyers(thought I would wear slacks and dress shoes sometimes). When we got to High School, we finally could get Keds, but we wouldn’t wear them to school. In High School we wore dress shoes with our “starched and ironed” jeans. The dress shoes were pointed, winged tipped black shoes. Or we also wore loafers. As I reflect back to those times, I think it was all so silly.
Johnny — Oh my gosh, PF Flyers? And Levi’s and Keds — at least you picked some classics! Isn’t it funny how imperative all that seems in school? I remember wanting a pair of “Dittos” (jeans) so badly in elementary school, but my parents thought they were too expensive. Finally, they agreed to get me one pair. I picked green! (ugh!) (A kelly green, too! Double-ugh!) But man, I wore those Dittos constantly!!!! 🙂
That smile does say it all, doesn’t it! I remember being so excited to wear all my stuff too. I also longed for those “dittos” and finally got one pair (mine were navy blue though)! I remember getting a few new outfits, maybe one for every day and one pair of shoes and of course the new folders and pencils, etc. Today the kids get so much more then we did – although I suppose that is my fault, isn’t it! Anyways, I hope Nate and all the kids have a great school year!