School registration time

Today Amanda and Jared and I went on a little adventure to Amanda's new school to turn in her registration papers. The office folks were at lunch when we got there, so we spent a little while walking around and seeing where things are, like the kindergarten classrooms, the school library, the cafeteria, etc. Someone who knew where the office people were hiding had pity on us and summoned someone to help us, at which point we got to meet the school guinea pigs while the paperwork got processed. Turned out we were just in time: the big, critical pre-school events begin tomorrow with the school supply sale, where the mandatory calculator may be purchased. I remember way back when when I was in school and didn't have to have a calculator until middle school; and then the school had a stock of them to use. Didn't "have" to buy one until high school when I got a graphing calculator (which was fun to program . . . and also useful for actually doing work). The funniest part of it all is that basic calculators didn't even exist, at least certainly not for common use, when Amanda's grandparents were in school, hence Grandmother's semi-sarcastic question: "So, what do they need for 1st grade? A laptop?" Ah, the encroachment of technology into our daily lives. :) If nothing else, though, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that my child could add, subtract, and multiply BEFORE she got a calculator. :)