Memories of the First Day of School

Photo from http://cartoonlunchboxes.com/Store/hollyhobbie

I just emailed my friend a pic of DD on her first day of school and I was thinking back to MY first days of school.  When I was a kid I always wore a new dress or skirt on the first day of school.  I used to always be very nervous about being sure I got on the right bus home.  (I never did ever get on the wrong bus, but I sweated it out every year!)  I was also always nervous to see who was in my new class - I wasn't the type to have a ton of friends - I was the type to just have a few close friends - and I'd always pray at least one or two would be in my new class.  I think I usually had a new lunchbox too.
 

I remember one year I had a Holly Hobbie metal lunchbox that I LOVED.  And would you believe another girl in my class had the SAME lunchbox?  I can still remember I used to put mine all the way to the right in the coat and lunchbox cubby so I'd know which one was mine.  Not that I took it that often - I usually bought hot lunch.  But there were a few hot lunches I would NOT eat.  So on those days I'd have to bring my Holly Hobby lunchbox and put it in my "special spot".

I came across one of these while school shopping for DD - the DYMO label maker - it's fancy schmancy - it even makes Color labels! If I had had this, I could have put a label on every side of that lunchbox and I could've saved myself all that stress worrying about that other girl taking it!

Actually if I had had this I probably would've labeled every pencil, book and folder I had - I would have loved this!  (I also could have even used it to label my leftovers in the fridge at home to keep my brother from eating them on me, but that's another post...)

I also discovered something I think is WAY COOL - I was looking through the website and they even make special iron on labels you can print on and then iron onto clothing, which would be GREAT to use on coats, scarves, mittens, gym clothes, etc. so that when your kid loses it, it'll go right back to you instead of into the giant pile of lost and found!

I can even think of a million things around here I could label like containers in the pantry that I store smaller portions of items I buy in bulk to try to save some money on groceries.  This way I don't have to open the dog food, coffee and Cheerios trying to find the sugar!  I could even make DH to use it to label his boxes of bottlecaps!

Well, I'll tell ya, I didn't exactly look forward to the first day of school when I was a kid, but now that I'm a Mom?  It's a GREAT day!  :-)