Tools For School

The twins are starting kindergarten on September 1. I went to their school today to pay our school fees (the equivalent of one week's worth of groceries!). I signed them up for daycare, got busing information (the bus stop is our driveway!), and picked up the school supplies distributed by the school.

The school also gave me a list of items that I have to buy for my children. It reads as follows:

• 4 tennis balls (Why? I don't know)
• 1 lunchbox
• 1 schoolbag
• 1 big pencil case
• 1 pair of indoor running shoes
• 1 complete change of clothing in a labelled bag
• 1 pair of headphones

Headphones? I realise that it has been 25 years since I went to elementary school, but have things really changed that much? When I was a kid, headphones were forbidden. In fact, if we were caught with headphones, the school would call our parents! Now, the school is requesting that parents send their children to school with headphones. I feel old and out of touch.

Then I thought, headphones! What a brilliant idea! My house is so noisy. Sometimes, I feel like I am losing my mind. All I crave is some peace and quiet. Things have gotten so bad that I have set up a TV and a DVD player in Sarah's bedroom so the kids can watch their movies out of earshot. It never occurred to me to get headphones. I wonder if there is a way to connect three pairs of headphones to the same TV? I would need three cordless headphones. That way, the children won't be sitting next to each other (if I hear "She kicked me!" one more time I am going to run away from home!) and no one will "accidentally" trip over their sister's cord thereby dislodging the headphones from either her head or the TV.

Do such wonderful things exist????