Back to School Shopping Guide

I was prepared to buy new backpacks, bows, shoes, cute clothes they never wear. But in true 2020 fashion, this back to school year is just different. My kids are one of the lucky ones that got to start in person. I know a lot of schools are changing schedules often, so thought I would share what’s helped us get and stay organized.

Masks: Buy in bulk bc one or two won’t work. You need to send each kid to school with two. If you hate laundry as much as me, you need one for each day. You need to keep extras in your car (and your spouses). My kids officially have more masks than underwear. Not sure if that’s a good thing or bad.
Mask necklaces: Bows that match dresses, socks with ruffles that match shoes, tights that match coats, these are all the things I new I would be purchasing as a girl mom. Throw in some other fun accessories like key chains for backpacks for personalization or necklaces to be crazy. But never did I imagine I would be buying old lady glasses chains to keep my kindergartner’s mask from dragging the toilet seat, but here we are.
Blue light glasses: Remember when you were a new mom and mom shamed for letting your kids watch too much tv. Now you are being mom shamed if you do not put your kid on a zoom call for 7 hours a day.
Paper lunch bags: Apparently environmentalism is out the window. It was highly suggested to only send lunches in throw away lunch bags. Couple that with peanut free classrooms and my lunch selections would be super unhealthy. Since I haven’t been able to find any evidence covid only transfers on lunchboxes and not backpacks Im going to have to choose this as one of the hills ill die on. Nutrient dense, fresh food is super important during these time.
Wifi-Booster. Kids are supposed to be in school. But when you live in a big neighborhood and everyone is virtual and working from home we will all be cussing wishing we at least had AOL dial-up speed.
Lingerie Bag: When your whole stimulus check goes to masks, you want to make sure they will last until this is over. Lingerie bag will keep everything from twisted and tied up.
Fabric Sanitizer: I have never been a germaphobe and I don’t want to become one. But I want to respect my kids teachers and do my best to keep our germs at home. So I replaced our lice spray caddy (social distancing better put an end to those bastards forever) with a fabric sanitizer to spray lunch boxes and backpacks in between washes when kids get home.
Airplane Bottles: Yes we usually stock up for ourselves, but how often do we stock up for teachers? This year it’s imperative you give them the tools they need to be successful, and I’m pretty sure booze is the only thing that will help. Sanitizer, Kleenex, soap, etc are all things we should be buying for the teachers no matter what, this year still get those, but add the hard stuff too.

Mudroom Organization

All of these new found goodies are being organized in my “mudroom.” While I call it a mudroom, its literally a bench by the back door. Mudroom sounds fancier so we go with that. While germs don’t bother me, clutter and messes do. So organization is top of priority list. Not to mention, my kids haven’t left the house in shoes in 5 months so transitioning back to real life is going to take some time.

Mask Bins

This is the door we go in and out of so its easiest too keep our clean masks here so that when we get situated in the car then realize we forgot them, we don’t have too far back into the house to get them. Daily this happens. But hoping we don’t get used this. Then once kids come home they hang their necklaces and put dirty masks in the lingerie bag.

Sanitizer Bin

Last year this was a lice bin. Yep, that happens once before you make sure that never happens again. This year we have replaced lice sprays bc social distancing with lysol or whatever fabric sanitizer we can find. This is also our hair bin. We do hair in the morning while girls are eating breakfast. Not sure if that passes health codes, but it works for us. And totally kidding about lice sprays being replaced, those are still sprayed because Im still more scared of lice outbreak than covid.

Hooks

Our beaded necklaces got broken pretty quickly, so we traded up for these lovely fake gold necklaces to keep masks from rubbing on the toilet seat. Since I have a feeling they will get broken easily bought a bunch and keep them hung to grab on the way out the door.

Shoe Bin

I may have let shoes slide before once kids were done crawling on the floor. But we are back to no shoes in the house. So next to the dogs bed is our shoe cubby. I had also planned on making a hamper here and making them change their clothes downstairs when they get home. But I have decided that’s equivalent to wiping off groceries and its too far