Two More Weeks of Summer!

I've written in this space before about my increasing disillusionment with the public school system. To that end, early this calendar year we pulled my oldest son to home school him, and we have now enrolled him in a charter school. We wanted to get the two younger children in the same place, if for no other reason than to synchronize their schedules. Having two sets of school calendars to keep was going to drive us crazy. Therefore, we put the two of them on the wait list to get in to the charter school, as well, with high hopes but a healthy cynicism that they would actually get in.

Well, yesterday I got a call from the school saying that both the younger kids also got into this school! The lady on the phone identified herself, told me that the kids had been accepted, and then proceed to start to ask me if I wanted to enroll them. I didn't even let her finish her question, and interrupted her to answer, "We'll do it!"

We are so excited. They were supposed to start school today over at the public elementary school. My youngest, in particular, was going to be in all-day kindergarten (something we did not want), so we were struggling with having them start.

With their acceptance at the charter school, though, things have changed quite a bit. My wife immediately called the other school and told them we were pulling our kids. Apparently the school were not very happy about that, as they've been struggling with enrollment. She also whirled around the house collecting all the stuff that was needed to get them enrolled at the charter school, including:

* Filled out applications to attend the school (many LONG forms to fill out)
* The kids birth certificates
* Copies of their immunization records
* Proof of our residency in the area, namely her drivers license or a utility bill

She'll be taking all this stuff over today to make it all official.

Now we have two more weeks of summer to play with all three of the kids. This is wonderful, and I greatly look forward to it.

To top it all off, today is my birthday. Since I need to be at work, we're kind of stretching out the birthday celebrations all weekend. Yesterday we went out to eat for dinner, today we'll be having birthday cake, Friday we'll be going to the beach to use my birthday present, the kayak we bought a few months back. Saturday, my wife arranged for us to go to a Harry Connick, Jr. concert at the Hollywood Bowl (many thanks to our good friends in the ward, who made that possible!). And Sunday is stake conference at church, so I get to spend nearly the whole day with my family.

Awesome.

I think most normal parents can't wait for school to start so they can get the kids out from under foot. While we do have some of those feelings, we actually have felt unprepared about the whole thing, and weren't quite mentally ready to send them off. Having those extra few weeks will be much better!