The Insane-ness of it all!

Alright, everyone here is familiar with the list of school supplies kids are required to bring. Sometimes the said list can be ridiculous, but Terra's is outrageous this year. Seriously. There are 3-4 Kindergarten classes in this school and they all have the same supply list to bring. Most of the list, I can see, but there are some that just make you kind of scratch your head a bit.

Backpack with name
2 pocket folders - horizontal pockets with name
2 pocket folders w/3-hole paper fasteners with name
1 pair blunt-end metal blade scissors
6 #2 pencils
3 pkg crayons (24 pack)
1 pkg colored pencils (16 colors)
4 pkg markers (large)
2 pkg thin dry erase markers
1 pkg water color paints (8 colors)
3 pkg (3-pack) playdough
2 (4 oz) bottles white school glue
20 glue sticks
3 boxes quart sized Ziploc bags
1 box gallon Ziploc bags
4 pkg antibacterial wipes (no disinfectant wipes)
1 pkg plastic spoons (last name a-m)
1 pkg (5 oz) Dixie cups (last name n-z)
2 boxes kleenex
3 rolls paper towels

No, there are NO typos in this, I've double checked it a couple of times. So, go ahead and scratch your head a bit. If every child, in every one of those 3-4 classes brings everything on this list...that's a lot of supplies. If they go through EVERYTHING then (and this is probably my Grandma coming out in me) that's kinda wasteful, don't you think?! And, yes, I must remind myself, these are 5-6 year olds here. I get that. But twenty glue sticks?! Really?! Wow is all I can say!

On another note...

The other day, we drove to the library to pick up a book they had on hold for me. On our way there, we passed a rest stop (we live near the interstate, so yes, there's a rest stop between here and the library) and there was a truck pulling a passenger rail car as it's load. Terra got all excited about it and was bouncing up and down in her seat pointing at it and telling everyone to look at the train. When James looked, he got a rather confused look on his face and asked me if the train had gotten lost. The only thing I can think is that since the tracks were so far away, that he though the train had "wandered off" and gotten lost from the rest of the trains. LOL, I laughed for a while about that!

We just had to go to Savers to buy James more clothes since he's starting to out-grow his size 4T clothing. We only had a few pieces of clothing left from the hand-me-down boxes from Chris's sister's kids. After we got back, we started to notice that Tyler was starting to fit into James clothes that we were trying to pack up. So, both of the boys were going through a growth spurt. We also started to notice that the diapers were starting to get tighter and tighter on the poor guy. So we figured we could get away with buying the size 4T pull-ups and just slowly start training him. Well, something I should have thought of while buying these pull-ups was how different the sizing can be between the different brands. He fits into the same size of pull-ups as James does (which is the largest size they make...and is Huggies brand, since those are the most lose-fitting of them all...we had to experiment with James to see what wouldn't cause skin irritation due to tight fitting ones). We thought about the boxer-looking (overnight) ones, but they're so expensive and you only get a few per pack. So, it's a sad life when you realize that you'll probably just have to bite the bullet and potty train your toddler that just barely turned 2!!!
*Please, don't send any comments about how his health or eating habits are. He has the same diet as my other kids, and the doctors have pretty much ruled out a thyroid problem since his height is proportionate to his weight and he's very active. He's just going to be a tall boy! The tall ones usually start out larger than normal!*