kindergarten: it's official

Today started with a little stroll with Erin, or I strolled while she biked, to the local school to enroll her in kindergarten for the fall.

I had to bring a small collection of specific documents and I traded them for a gigantic set of tedious forms requiring a depth of personal information that I wasn't prepared to provide. For example, I didn't have our dentist's address and phone number handy, I didn't know how to assess Erin's study skills, or what to list as her hobbies (do other 4 year-olds really have study skills? Do they really have hobbies?). They asked me to describe how our family spends our time together (um, I mentioned back on page 52 that we have 2 year-old twins...but I concluded that they weren't genuinely interested in our reality of diapers, grocery shopping, laundry, and trying to keep ahead of the toy tornado that passes through the house at least hourly). I started to anticipate a section where I'd have to interpret ink blots.

So I did my best to answer thoughtfully and creatively, and most importantly, succinctly, because Erin reminded me every minute or two of the 45 minutes we were there that, yes, this was REALLY boring and I wanted to go home too.

This is step one of our kindergarten registration process. We had to register at our designated local school but next week we will apply for the lottery for a spot at one of our district's four magnet/alternative public elementary schools. Winning a space is a long shot but John and I really liked one particular school that emphasizes a science and technology curriculum and it has a multi-classroom grouping that we think will be especially great for the twins. If Erin gets in the twins will be accepted automatically when their time comes. So please join us in crossing fingers next month.

After that therapeutic paperwork experience we gathered the twins and Danielle and met a bunch of friends at the park.





The girls had a good time with chalk drawing and the playground, and the kids invented a game of "throw the ball against the wall and then it's someone else's turn". Though everyone needed some help remembering that second part.

Then it was lunch time and I was feeling lazy so I suggested going to the local burger king with a play area and fortunately most of the park gang decided to join us. The enclosed play structure there is tall and has a steep slide to return to the bottom. The speed going down really took Kate by surprise. The bigger kids enjoyed piling down the slide together.