#tbt - schoolmarm

Last week, Lauren and Katelyn and I went on a shopping expedition to Kohl's.  Immediately, upon entering the store, I was hit with the fragrance of "Back to School" shopping.  The smell of fresh leather purses, squeaky clean rubber shoe soles, newly manufactured fabrics, and a strange mixture of perfumes took me back a couple of decades.

I was reminded of the hot August days, spent in the safety of air conditioned department stores, searching for a new wardrobe for the school year.  My mom would make us wiggle our toes in tried on shoes so she could determine "room to grow."  We picked out new shirts, new jeans, and new bags for our books.

While most kids are known for their propensity to complain during long drawn out shopping trips with their siblings and mother, I thought it was magical.

Before you get all, "Oh, how cute.  She's a natural born shopper," let me clarify.  I hate shopping.  I HATE shopping.  I always have and I always will.  To me, it was magical because it meant it was time to go back to school.  The excitement of stepping foot inside a new classroom with a freshly filled backpack and clothing still creased from being folded was so wonderful it outweighed the pure torture and misery of shopping for clothes.

I am that big of a nerd.

I love school so much I went to more school specifically to continue going to school.  I chose teaching because I love school so much, I wanted to be in charge at school.  One year, at the close of the third grade, my teacher told us we could take our textbooks home because they were being phased out.  I'm sure most of the books ended up at Goodwill or the trash, I brought mine home and set up a stuffed animal classroom.  Each June, when my friends were singing, School's out for summer!  School's out forever!, I was always glad that school wasn't actually out forever and I sort of wished it wasn't even out for summer.

Twenty years later, I had graduated from college with a freshly inked diploma and a license to teach in the state of Utah and absolutely no job.  I woke up the first morning of the semester to drive Dave to school and I held it together as I watched Dave walk across the campus lawn and into a classroom and then I cried the whole way home.  Then I crawled back in bed and cried for about an hour more.

It all worked out in the end.  I finally got a job teaching tenth and eleventh grade and I loved it.  When Kate was born, I felt at peace with the school chapter of my life finally coming to a close.  It felt right and, besides, motherhood is such a long and complicated chapter, I had plenty with which to occupy myself with.

Now that I'm past the shell shocked phase of being a new mom and into the always shifting ever changing toddler years, I am even more at peace.  I love being a mom and I love spending all my time with this beautiful, silly, funny baby girl.

And yet, last night, after a day of "back to school" shopping, I had the most wonderful dream that I was back in my classroom on the first day of school.