Thank you all for your input on yesterday’s kindergarten question. Given all of the criteria we think we are going to go with our local school. The deciding factors are socialization, why we picked the district in the first place, the less likelihood of the boy getting “removed” from the other district* and the advice of the trusty sister-in-law. I should have asked her first, but I’m dumb like that.
Registration is Monday. The school’s website says nothing about assessments being done at registration time so I have no clue if I’m supposed to take him with me. It would be nice if I didn’t have to since registration is from 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and the boy is in preschool most of that time.
I did call the school yesterday morning to ask them about his birth certificate and the possibility of touring the school. I spoke with the secretary and she says I should have no issue with his birth certificate as long as I bring his certificate of citizenship. We elected to not do a re-adoption in the US and he still has a Russian birth certificate.
I spoke with the preschool teachers earlier this year about the move to the primary school and they suggested talking to the school about making a few visits prior to the end of the school year. When I talked to the primary school secretary she said that they don’t usually do that and that open house day is in August. She was kind of snide when I said he has trust/transition/change issues and this would be a good idea. Her reply, “the August open house won’t be enough for him?” If push came to shove it would work, but it isn’t ideal.
The boy’s preschool moved across the building this past summer and we spent time touring the construction area, attending VBS and generally spending time in the space prior to the start of school. We carried the boy out of the open house screaming and the first day of school he wouldn’t let me leave the room. So no lady, one visit right before school starts isn’t going to cut it. She suggested we speak with the principal when we are there Monday to see if he’ll let us make a few extra visits. My worst fear is him fearing the school and end up hating it. He’s already freaked out because his best friends won’t be going to the same school.
The good news is we will continue with hockey next season and with any luck some of his preschool friends will be on his hockey team. Two boys recently joined our learn to skate program and the parents seem as if they are interested in keeping their kids in the program.
We are planning on spending as much time together as a family this summer. We’ve made a commitment to say no to as much stuff as possible especially since I will be out of the country most of July (I’m gone almost 3 weeks). Last year we had something every weekend and it prohibited us from even taking a family camping trip. At the end of the summer the boy was so sad that he didn’t get to sleep in a tent. Our other challenge for the summer is that I might be working (besides my church job).
I’ve applied for a job at a local garden center and it sounds like they are very interested in hiring me (or at least talking to me at this point). It is a very small nursery and I don’t know if they carry extra staff over the summer. I only want to work part-time especially since retail nursery jobs don’t pay enough for child care. I also worry about leaving the boy all day long. That may seem silly, but you don’t know my boy and his people issues. Some PI kids have food issues mine has serious people issues.
So that’s the word.
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*See Auntie G’s comment
I am going to preface this post by saying I actually want your opinions. This means you need to leave comments. Please. See, I asked nicely.
As you may know the boy will be entering the big bad scary world of kindergarten next school year. It is also that time of year when schools have enrollment for said Kindergarten. Although, I can’t find the specific dates for our schools.
For the past few years I’ve been confused as to what school the boy is supposed to go to. We live in a suburb with its own school district. We selected this suburb because of the school district. Then I was talking with our former babysitter and she said that her brothers go to the major town school district and not the suburb school district even though they live in the suburb. I thought that was odd. For all I knew our “home” school was the suburb school and they lived further away from it than we did. Then I found out that yes, the suburb school is our “home” school and the one the boy is supposed to attend.
Here are how schools work around here. The suburb school district is a 4 school system (K-4, 5-7, 8-9, 10-12). The major school district is a 3 school system (K-5, 6-8, 9-12). In the major school district families are allowed to select any school they choose, but if they are not attending their “home” school they must provide their own transportation. I believe the same is for the suburb school district. The suburb school district has 1/2 day kindergarten. The major school district is full day kindergarten. We can send the boy to the major school district, but we have to have a release from the suburb school district and I’m not sure if we are guaranteed to get the elementary school we would like.
The facts at hand are: major school district - full day kindergarten, good kindergarten teacher, home elementary school of the district gifted program, not our “home” school meaning the neighborhood kids won’t necessarily go there. Suburb school district – half day kindergarten, I don’t know about the teacher’s experience with gifted children, not the home school for the district gifted program, children in the neighborhood might go to the school, some of the best schools in the state.
Given all of that I had planned to send the boy to the suburb school district. Then the aforementioned babysitters mom came to help me with Valentine’s candy and she asked where the boy was going to kindergarten. I told her. She said that at the major school district elementary school right by our house there is a fantastic kindergarten teacher. She has lots of experience with gifted children and is simply wonderful. I started to question my decision.
I talked it over with a few people and decided to stick with my original choice. I wasn’t sold on totally switching districts just for one teacher.
Then a few weeks ago I was at my goddaughter’s birthday party and started talking to a friend who is a kindergarten teacher. I asked her opinion on the matter. She voted for the school with full day kindergarten. She said to put him there for kindergarten and then move him to the suburb school district.
The trouble with this is change. The boy is already sweating the move to a new school. However, he’s been in preschool for 3 years now. In all honesty he’s ready for full day school. Our suburb school district has full day kindergarten, but we would have to pay for it. I’m not sure we could afford it and it’s not a guarantee.
I was reluctant to make a final decision, but was still leaning towards the suburb school.
Then last week I was talking with the husband of a preschool friend. We had the same “what school” conversation and I mentioned my conundrum. He said he’d had lots of discussions with his father-in-law (who happens to be the superintendent of schools for the major school district) about the matter. He asked what is the best for the kids. Superintendent’s answer was start them early and with full day. When he took on the job as superintendent that was his first order of business, full day kindergarten.
Now I’m totally at a loss. What do I do? My plan was to go with the 1/2 day and supplement academically with in-home instruction. I would like him to go full day (not only for selfish reasons), but I don’t want to switch him around from school to school. The trusty husband says whatever district we start him in he will stay there. So the major school district kindergarten and then suburb school district for the rest isn’t an option. That is too many changes for him (remember suburb schools are a 4 school system so that is enough on it’s own). I also want him to have friends that live close by. Yes, the major school district school is very close to our house, but the kids come from all over. Our suburb is much smaller.
So I’m asking, if it was your child (who is showing signs of giftedness, yet has trust and change issues) what would you do? I have to make up my mind soon because registrations start very soon.
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*yes, it is cost prohibitive for us to pay for full-day kindergarten. It is double what we pay currently for preschool. If we pay for full day kindergarten we would not be able to pay for other extra curricular activities such as sports. Also, there are too many families who want full day kindergarten so we would be entered into a lottery and not guaranteed a spot.
A few months ago the trusty husband and I sat down and had a conversation that I wasn’t planning on having. We were out for happy hour sans small child and somehow the conversation turned to having more children. We both agree that more would be nice. However, we are not in a position to say, “yes, let’s do that.” In 2008 we spent another 6 months trying to get pregnant. Did I tell you that? I don’t remember. We did, it didn’t work. When we started he asked me how long we are going to try for. I didn’t have an answer. I figured we would try until either it worked (HA HA) or until I couldn’t stand the disappointment anymore. We went with the latter.
In our conversation we both agreed that trying to have a biological kid, yeah not so much good for us. We aren’t going to try that anymore. That pretty much leaves adoption for us and well… we can’t afford that. Whee! We got a dog instead. Obligatory we can’t have a kid dog?
I’m ok with where we are right now. I’m ok with not having a biological child. Obviously, I adopted. I’m ok with putting plans to adopt another child on hold for the moment. I would like to do it without huge amounts of debt. What I haven’t done is gone through the process of grieving my infertility.
No, I have not gone through the process of full on infertility testing. I don’t want to do it because I find it totally hypocritical that our insurance will pay 80% of the testing but 0% of the treatment. The other reason is I don’t believe in artificial reproductive therapy. So why go through the testing to find out something is wrong, but not follow through with the treatment? I know what is wrong with me. I have fibroids. I have an ovary that was cauterized from endometriosis treatment and I don’t know if it functions properly. I have scar tissue from having a lime sized tumor cut out of my uterus. I have issues people. It’s all a mess up in there.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not mad about the whole thing. Why did I have to get tumors? Why did I have to have very severe endometriosis? Why can’t I have a baby and my girlfriends are on #2 or #3? Boo frickedy hoo, why me?
I’m stuck between this rock and a hard place. On one hand I know I can’t have more children right now and I want them, but I also don’t want to go through the “I did all I could do” stuff people go through. It leaves me in a bit of a pickle.
Here’s the catch. Have you noticed? There are pregnant people everywhere. Well that’s a big fat duh. Seriously. Every.where. Get invited to a party – pregnant chick. Find a new funny blog to read – written by a pregnant chick. Log in to Facebook – pregnant friend. Preschool mom – pregnant. I can’t get away from them.
Sure, I want to grieve my infertility. I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying to move past this. It’s just that giant green monster of jealousy that eats at my very soul. One girlfriend who understands might do the trick. One who listens and ends up pregnant and calls to talk to me before blabbing it all over Facebook first. One who calls to say, “hey I know you are having a rough go at it but I just wanted you to know that so and so is pregnant and will be there on Sunday.” One who gets it. That’s great for you that you are having baby #20, but I’m not and I’m not really happy for you, I’m totally jealous.
We all know my love for Winter Olympics. It’s not just that I love sports such as luge, bobsleigh, skeleton, or curling. I do loves me some curling. The Winter Olympics is home to gems such as snowboard half-pipe and of course… hockey.
I have been eagerly waiting for the start of the 2010 Winter Olympics since it was announced way back when. In 2006 I swore I was going to save my money and buy tickets for the entire hockey tournament in 2010. I had grand plans of living in Vancouver the whole time and living hockey. Then we found out that Americans couldn’t buy tickets unless we drove up to Vancouver and waiting in line. Even then we weren’t guaranteed to get tickets. Our Canadian friends even tried to get tickets. They couldn’t because they didn’t live IN Canada. My Olympic hopes were dashed.
I had (begrudgingly) come to grips with my disappointment and moved on to excitement of watching the Olympics on TV. That was also a huge disappointment. The first clue in there was when the opening ceremonies were on tape delay. We live 2 hours away from Vancouver, but we were watching the ceremonies on a 3 hour delay. Such is the rest of the network coverage. What’s worse is that CBC lost their bid for coverage to a station that isn’t shown here. So we can’t even get the Canadian coverage.
The other night the trusty husband came home to say Lindsay Vonn had won the gold in Women’s Downhill. Ok. That left me men’s snowboard half-pipe that night. I tuned in for the quarterfinals and the trusty husband and I got to talking about some of the hockey games. I logged on to NBColympics.com and the first thing on the front page, “SHAUN WHITE WINS GOLD.” Well shit. So we watched something that was Tivoed.
Yesterday I checked the listings for Sunday’s hockey games. WTF? Outside of the the gold medal game the two best games of the entire tournament were happening on Sunday. Russia vs. Czech Republic and USA vs. Canada. The Russia v. Czech game was scheduled for 12:00 p.m. TV coverage? Didn’t start until 3:00. 3 hour delay. That was ok since I had a meeting at 12:15. I did some yard work and came in to watch the game and had planned to flip back and forth once the US v. Canada game started. At 4:30 it was the end of the 2nd in Russia v. Czech so I turned to the US/Canada game. On the screen… the final score of the Russia/Czech game. feck.
The only thing that is keeping me from beating NBC programming execs to a pulp is that they showed the US/Canada game live. However, in my opinion the West coast coverage of the Olympics is one giant FAIL!
So you all know my sewing machine died right? If you weren’t paying attention… it did. My very expensive, fairly new sewing machine. I broke it. It is currently being fixed and I am without a sewing machine. I haven’t been without one in many many years and it is like having an arm cut off.
I had a conversation about this with my trusty MIL and she mentioned something about letting me borrow Bunny’s* old Singer. She brought back 1 or 2 sewing machines when Bunny moved out here and she thought the Singer was accessible.
Monday afternoon we had lunch with the trusty in-laws and I thought I’d ask again for the Singer before we left. We found it in a closet and I was a little stunned when she pulled out the box. I knew it was Bunny’s “old” machine, but I didn’t know it was circa 1964. Yes, my sewing and crafty friends, I now am the proud borrower of a 1964 Singer Featherweight 221 sewing machine. The machine is complete with accessory box and needles still in their original packaging (costing $.30).
This morning I pulled the machine out of the case just to see what condition it was in. Bunny took impeccable care of everything she owned, but this machine hadn’t been used in a very long time. To my surprise it was in perfect condition. The belt is a little dry and I’m not sure it will take much use so I ordered a new one, but other than that everything is in perfect working order.
I have never sewn on a machine that sews so perfectly. Even my very nice and expensive Viking is not this perfect. There is nary a plastic piece on this machine save a few knob covers. It is small and will not likely do some of the major stuff I do, but it will finish the silk skirt I started and the gift I have for Kathou’s little girl.
The only problem with the machine is that I will have to give it back. I’ve sewn one line with it and I’m totally in love.
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*Bunny is the Trusty Husband’s grandmother who passed away shortly after we brought the boy home.
