Because let's be honest...none of us are ready.
Hi friend,
Can I make you feel a little better about your back-to-school situation?
School starts in two weeks.
Do you know how much we've accomplished?
We bought school supplies.
We attempted clothes.
That's about it.
And I say "attempted" very intentionally.
I keep seeing all these perfectly organized back-to-school lists and parents who somehow already have everything labeled, packed and sitting neatly by the front door.
Meanwhile, I'm over here trying to get everyone ready in record time.
And honestly, I think most of us are.
Except my sister.
My Pinterest-mom sister probably had this year's school supplies purchased in December of last year.
The rest of us are going to be just fine.
Back-to-School Mission #1: The School Supplies
My kids LOVE back-to-school shopping.
And I don't want to take that away from them.
There's something genuinely fun about going into a store and choosing the backpack you're going to carry every day. Picking your lunchbox. Finding the water bottle that feels like you.
I want them to have that experience.
Unfortunately, the experience also happens inside a giant big-box store packed with approximately 3,000 other families trying to do exactly the same thing.
And that is where things start to fall apart.
The lights.
The people.
The carts.
The noise.
The aisles packed with stuff.
The decisions.
And then there's the actual school list.
You need a red folder with pockets but no prongs.
Five comprehensive notebooks.
Two boxes of pencils.
Glue sticks.
Crayons.
Some extremely specific orange folder that apparently every second grader in the city also needs.
So now we're pushing a giant cart through crowded aisles trying to find the last item on the list while my kids are getting more and more overstimulated.
Then someone wants to go to the toy section.
Someone finds twelve things they suddenly desperately need.
I start saying no.
They're disappointed.
I'm getting overwhelmed too.
And eventually the fun family shopping trip I pictured in my head has completely disappeared.
I've had these trips end with tears.
I've had them end with me yelling in the parking lot.
And I've had them end with all of us sitting silently in the car, scarfing down pizza because none of us had enough left in us to even drive home yet.
Not exactly the magical back-to-school memory I was going for.
And here's the thing:
My kids weren't the only ones experiencing sensory overload.
I was too.
It took me a long time to recognize that.
By the end of those trips, my nervous system was just as fried as theirs.
So eventually I stopped trying to make the traditional back-to-school shopping trip work for our family.
I found our version.
What we do now
I still take them shopping.
But we have THREE things we're going there to buy:
Backpack.
Lunchbox.
Water bottle.
Those are the fun things. Those are the things they actually care about choosing.
If we happen to see some cool markers or a notebook they love?
Fine. Throw it in.
But I am NOT spending three hours pushing a cart through packed aisles searching for the last orange folder on Earth.
I buy that stuff online.
Is our shopping trip suddenly calm and magical?
Absolutely not.
But it's the version that works the least badly for us.
And sometimes, as a sensory parent, "least bad" is a pretty solid win.
Back-to-School Mission #2: Clothes
And no.
I do NOT do clothes and school supplies on the same day.
I've been doing this too long.
I know better. 😂
Clothing gets its own day.
This year I really wanted to "try" and get my kids to branch out a little beyond their Parker & Talia clothes.
Not because I don't want them wearing my clothes. I literally created the company because those are the clothes my kids can tolerate.
But I'm a small business.
I can't manufacture an entire department store's worth of styles yet.
And my kids want variety.
So off we went.
This trip was fascinating because my two children could not possibly shop more differently.
My daughter is fiercely independent.
She wants absolutely nothing to do with me while she's shopping.
No opinions.
No suggestions.
Don't hold something up.
Don't ask if she likes it.
Basically, Mom, please disappear.
So I spend the entire trip lurking about twenty feet behind her like an absolute creep, pretending to look at clothes while actually making sure she's okay and nobody approaches her.
My son is four years older than her.
FOUR.
And he needs to be attached to my hip.
He basically cannot shop unless I'm physically right next to him.
But there's another rule:
I'm not allowed to speak to him.
So apparently my job is to remain immediately beside him while also pretending I don't exist.
Sensory parenting is fun.
At one point, my daughter found a dress she wanted to try on.
The store had unisex fitting rooms, so I asked my son:
"Do you mind if I go with her?"
He shrugged.
"No. It's okay. I don't mind."
Then he thought about it.
"I HAVE to go with you. But that's okay. We can all go."
Of course you do.
So all three of us went to try on the dress.
And then she put it on.
It felt wrong.
And suddenly she was crying.
Then screaming.
In the fitting room.
That was it.
Her nervous system was done.
We had officially reached the end of the shopping trip.
Do you know what we walked out of the store with after our grand attempt at expanding their school wardrobes?
Fleece hoodies.
That's it.
Fleece.
Hoodies.
It is August.
Extremely helpful.
But those were the only things they could comfortably tolerate.
And this is exactly why Parker & Talia exists.
My kids genuinely wear our joggers to school constantly because they're some of the only pants they will tolerate for an entire school day.
This year, I finally added black after parents kept specifically asking me for them for school.
And thank GOD, because after our shopping adventure, apparently we're going to need them.
All of our jogger colors and sizes are finally back in stock too.
And someday?
I am going to have an entire Parker & Talia back-to-school wardrobe.
I'm working on it.
But I'm a small business. I can only manufacture so much inventory at a time.
So for now...
Apparently we're wearing Parker & Talia joggers and saving our brand-new fleece hoodies for October.
So...School Starts in Two Weeks. Now What?
This is where I'm currently at.
Not where I was five years ago.
Not some perfectly organized hypothetical back-to-school routine.
Right now.
School starts in two weeks and we've handled supplies and attempted clothing.
That's it.
So if you're reading this thinking:
"Wait...I haven't done ANYTHING yet."
You're fine.
We're going to do this together.
And because I have absolutely no desire to spend the next two weeks frantically running around trying to remember every little sensory thing my kids might need, I've started putting together the things I know we actually use.
Socks that won't bother them.
Something safe to chew.
Something to keep their hands busy.
A little squishy for those moments when everything feels like too much.
A pouch so all of it isn't floating around the bottom of a backpack with six broken pencils and a granola bar from 2024.
That's actually how our Back-to-School Sensory Kit came together.
Not as some magical bag that's going to make school easy.
I wish.
It's just a collection of the little things I've learned can make a hard moment slightly easier, already put together so that's one less thing we have to think about.
Because right now?
I am very interested in one less thing to think about.
And over the next two weeks, I'll share what we're actually doing as we get closer to the first day.
Not the Pinterest version.
The real version.
What we're putting in the backpacks.
How I'm getting the teachers ready for my kids.
What we're doing about mornings.
What inevitably goes completely off the rails.
And what actually helps.
So if you haven't started yet...
Welcome.
You're right on schedule.
Unless you're my sister.
In which case I'm sure everything is already labeled and you can see yourself out.
❤️ Valerie