The Kindergarden Krazies

Five years ago I was a little over halfway pregnant with my first child. I found out on January 20th 2008 that we were having a baby boy and then in May, Josiah entered our lives a month earlier than planned. He was perfect. Since that moment life has gone by way too fast. Jaime and I went from two to five all before my baby could turn five. I love having a big family and I know that he wouldn't trade his brother and sister for anything but... I've somehow missed the last five precious years. The only ones where I will get him in his entirety before handing him over someone else. Someone who as a county resident, I actually have no control over. I can fill out the paper work and make "requests" which will try to honored after all the city residents are placed at their top choices. Our neighborhood school is terrible. On their school report card  they received a 2 out of 10. So no, they will not be getting my little boy who can read a few small words, write anything I tell him to spell and can add any combination of numbers from 1-10. He is smart y'all. Yes, because I'm just crazy enough to sit around and do flash cards with him for the last 4 years but mostly because he belongs to his Daddy who forgot his calculator the day of the SAT and scored so high that he still has a plaque on the wall at our old high school.

His school needs to be perfect. And my vision of a perfect school isn't a bunch of white kids dressed in outfits from the Gap in a row quietly listening and sitting in a desk. I feel like he needs to be in a school where you see all different types of people and go outside a lot and throw your left over (organic!) lunch in a compost bin and talk about saving the planet. Where you can learn by seeing and doing... all the while becoming respectful, consious little people of a great big world.

We have a charter school, Evergreen, that is everything I've ever wanted but we can't go there. There is another charter school Art Space, love it, can't go there either. Then we have a city school whose focus is experiential learning. They have actual chickens and the kindergardeners go outside and collect and count the eggs! YES! Can't go there. So, where can we go? Honestly, the other choices are good too. And compared to our neighborhood school they may as well be Harvard. But which one will we get? This is my perfect, first born. I kinda expect Harvard.

I don't think I realized how much the whole thing was weighing on me until I toured every school in town over the course of one morning. I was a wreck and had pretty much decided to give up when I remembered: I go to church now. PRAY! I'm pretty sure even in all my spiritual newness that you aren't allowed to pray for specifics (i.e. let him get into Evergreen and I will never create another piece of waste as long as I live) but I can totally pray that he ends up exactly where he is supposed to. Because the reality of it is, he's gonna be fine. Wherever that may be. I may not be, but he will. Even if he went across the street to Johnson. Who knows, maybe he could teach the class? It'd be like Doogie Houser MD but with teachers instead of doctors. We would be famous and then I could afford to send him to some crazy hippie private school like the Learning Community or Rainbow Mountain. But, I digress. All I can do now is enjoy these last moments of Pre-K where I still rule the world. Oh how I love this sweet boy.