School Scouting

Today we started collecting information on new preschools for Jax. Next to finding a place to live, this has been what has worried me most about our impending move. I'm very disappointed to be leaving his current school. It has been such a great experience for him, and I worry we won't find something comparable close to the new house.

We started asking for recommendations during our last visit to the area, and everyone said that the two best programs were offered through two of the local churches, 1 Catholic and 1 Baptist. Well, since we're Catholic, the choice seemed obvious. As it turns out, both of these programs are so popular you have to pretty much get your kid on the waiting list as soon as they're born.

Anh called the church office and asked them what kind of "donation" we were looking at to get our kid in, and they just laughed and said that wouldn't work. So then he questioned whether he should pull a "Jeff Gillooly" (You know, Tanya Harding's ex-husband who whacked Nancy Kerrigan's kneecaps.) and take out some other kids so there'd suddenly be open slots. Again they laughed and said that probably wasn't a good idea. As a last ditch effort, Anh then suggested that we line all the kids up and have them race to qualify for school. Jax would definitely smoke them all! Again, just laughter.

They did offer a small glimmer of hope though. They suggested we go ahead and put him on the waiting list because they require the children to be potty-trained and sometimes children do have to leave the program if there's a "problem." So now we're hoping that some kid will have an accident, actually multiple accidents, and get kicked out. Okay, I'm not really hoping that some poor kid will be emotionally scarred for life, but if it happens, it happens, and it works out well for my kid.

So tomorrow we're heading up to check into the 3 other options that also come highly (just not as highly) recommended. I'm sure one of them will work out. Otherwise, we'll just have to home-school and seek out some play groups. We'll make something work, one way or another. As a side note, we did go ahead and put Baylor on the waiting list for the Catholic program. They're certain he'll get in. I would sure hope so. He's 3 months old! Just how many names could possibly be ahead of him for the 2011-2012 school year!