The commercials on television are trying to tell me this is the most wonderful time of the year – back to school – but I’m not feeling so wonderful about it. You see, this September marks my youngest child’s last year of college. He’s ecstatic; me…well, not so much. I enjoy school supply shopping and look forward to it every year. There is no better smell than that of a new notebook filled with clean pages. I love searching for just the right pens, book bags and lunch boxes. And don’t get me started on magic markers, I must have twenty sets in every color and style you can imagine!
This year’s shopping was much different. My boy will be living in his first apartment. Instead of folders, pens and calculators, we bought vacuums, fans and rugs. Whenever I tried to direct him to the office supply aisle, I was reminded that he either had those things or could get them on his own. I immediately went home and wrote out my own list. I mean, really, who couldn’t use some new pens and loose-leaf paper?
In one week we will pack up his clothes, books, computers and housewares [I still can’t believe he needs such things!] and drive him back up to school. The first year he was away, I cried each time I had to leave him, much as I had the year he was in pre-school. I have a sneaking suspicion there will be a lot of that this year, too.
As much as I miss the little boy who was so insistent on having a Scooby-Doo lunch box, I am so very proud of the man he is becoming. I may not be able to be with him every school day as I was in the past, but I can still send him off with the same encouragement and love. 
Dear reader, what are your favorite back to school memories?