Back to school and other tedium

Back to school and other tedium (first pub. ADDvance magazine online, 09-04)
by Betsy Davenport, PhD

How about this? I swing into action at 6:90 am. Now that was a typo, of course. I meant 6:00, but anyway, school starts tomorrow, if “tomorrow” is what comes after the bit of time one sleeps after “today.” Right now it's 3:30 am, I haven't gone to bed, and I just finished writing my child's name on every blessed Eberhard Faber Number 2 pencil, Black Ultra Fine Sharpie indelible marker, special-sized-why-don’t-they-use-note-book-paper-composition book, Erasable Scripto-only-we-couldn’t-find-Scripto-so-is-this-going-to-be-a-problem-this-year-or-not-what-do-you-think-buy-the-wrong-brand-or-send-her-without-erasable-pens-those-things-do-not-erase-very-well-anyway-as-I-recall ballpoint pen, Strathmore Sketch Pad-only-the 5-and-a-half-by-8-and-a-half-inch-one-will-do-I-wonder-why-that-is, this year it’s four quadrille pads-for-doing-math-homework-that-doesn’t-call-for-graphing-figure-that-out-will-you-I’m-too-tired-to-think-up-something, the-all-new-Spanish-English dictionary-because-probably-the-two-languages-have-changed-so-much-in-three-months’-time-a-young-student-will-be-rendered-speechless-in-two-languages-if-the-dictionaries-are-out-of-date, six-mechanical pencils-did-you-ever-get-a-multiply-syllabled-name-written-legibly-ON-a-pencil-in-your-life-oh-I-get-it-that’s-what-the-Ultra-Fine-Sharpies-are-for, three Pink Pearl erasers, miniscule containers that hold the erasers-for-the-mechanical-pencils, likewise the miniscule-to-the-fifth-power containers for the leads for the mechanical pencils.

And it’s not far from my mind that a good bit of this stuff, of which I have catalogued only a fraction here for you, will be used up, missing, or “misplaced” by Thanksgiving. There’s a lot of “borrowing” that goes on, too, only I never notice it happening in a reciprocal way; mostly she gets borrowed from, and while it’s usually with her permission (otherwise we’d have to start all over with vocab, wouldn’t we?), the return rates are worse than the ADD books at the public library.

I did think, for a brief, wild moment about how one might write her name ON the leads themselves, but abandoned the idea; not because it didn’t attract me, because it did; but because I was pretty sure it would go unnoticed by the naked eye of a teacher, and, if pointed out, ignored. And, given my mental state, that would have been a blow too great to bear.

Given my new-found (in a bottle) impulse control, I could even leave all the leads in the container and never even attempt this, even for my own amusement. And when I say “new-found,” this is a relative term, because I have been a close friend of psychostimulant medication for a bunch of years now; but compared to the number of years I have lived on this earth, it’s a blink of a bleary eye.

Last, but by no means least in importance, in fact, a kind of prerequisite to all the other things, I counted out Adderall tablets like a pharmacist – three days’ worth in case the school is swept under a tidal wave or the earth opens up between our house and the school and the stimulation of the fright she experiences fails to focus her Brain enough; she will have medication. And then the lunchtime doses for the rest of the week, so I don’t have to do it on a nightly basis for the rest of this already-I’m-way-too-tired week.

School is very good for us, I can tell already. Elementary math is standing me in good stead. I have to, on a monthly basis, multiply the number of Adderall tablets per day by 30 in order to ask the pharmacist to ask the doctor for the correct number. Either somebody along the line didn’t pass 3rd grade math, or someone is suffering premature Alzheimer’s, because as many months as not, 7 times 30 doesn’t result in 210 tablets in the bottle when I go to the pharmacy. For a few brief minutes I was going to etch her name into the Adderall tablets as well, but thought that as long as the large supply was going to be locked up, that was unnecessary; and as long as she herself had custody of the lunchtime dose, well, she knows her own name. Whew, off the hook on that.
And since she wouldn’t be caught dead being known by the general school populace as someone who takes medication, I am very sure she handles hers with great care. So much care, in fact, they sometimes come home in the afternoon just the way I packed them -- hermetically -- in the morning.

This “back to school” thing is really new to me. Oh, I went back to school myself, all right, and for too many years to count. But I surely don’t recall all the folderol of new clothes and school supplies (how many tissues does the box have to have? Will a box of 80 do? Or does it have to be a full 100? And since she’s a no-allergy kid, does that mean it’s all right to bring fewer?). It reminds me of when people asked me what was the “theme” going to be for the baby’s room. “Theme?” I would ask, almost shrieking. I figured we’d be lucky to get the old rug out of there the dog had, well, you know. “Theme,” meant, to me, room for the minimalist ideas I had about what a baby needs, which is things like attention, diapers, and quiet.

School clothes? The same, I’m afraid. It took me til she hit the third grade to get the idea, I’d say, and that was, yes, post-Ritalin. Coincidence? Doubtful. Now I’m the one pushing and shoving to shop before the day before school starts. It came as a bit of a relief this year to hear she’d decided that nice clothes were not the “look” she wanted to cultivate, though given the recent growth spurt, I’m still wondering what old clothes will possibly cover the territory, but that’s a math problem – geometry I think – and I’m much too tired and too old to take that up this time. I can go to bed as soon as I figure out how to get her name indelibly written on a navy blue backpack…