Thursday, May 27, 2010

A not so good morning...

I keep plotting my happy belly dancing post and getting waylaid by stressful occurrences. *sighs* In good news, my grandmother is doing well, although still in ICU. They wanted to keep an eye on her for an additional day since she was complaining of some discomfort and the doctor was adjusting her medication. But overall, she's doing great.

The furlough issue is still unresolved, but for the time being a temporary restraining order is in place, so that's good.

This morning, we had 2 major issues to contend with: the air conditioning in my car, and Hank's kindergarten orientation. We took the car in first thing, hoping that it would be a $200 or so fix. 'Twas not to be. The mechanic told us that the compressor needs to be replaced, and that would cost... are you ready? Wait for it... $760. I nearly fell over. Needless to say, we don't have that amount of money stocked away for a repair of a non-essential item. I am most unhappy about the situation. We're going to shop around at a few other places, but unless something truly unexpected happens, I'm going to be sweating a lot this summer.

Next, we walked to our local public elementary school for Hank's orientation. I was really looking forward to this, and at this point, I hadn't gotten the car news yet, so I was in good spirits. Unfortunately, I wasn't too impressed. I went to public city schools k-12; I did just fine, and that district has a lot of issues that our suburban district does not. Our elementary school comes highly recommended and people in the neighborhood rave about it. As a general rule, I'm all about keeping an open mind with regard to public schools.

It's just that...things have changed since I was in school. Everything now is about "state standards and regulations" with an unbelievable amount of emphasis on testing and other assessments. The environment is also so, so rigid and strict. God forbid you should want to walk your child into their classroom or enter the school while classes are in session. You have to be buzzed in, signed in, and receive special written permission to do just about anything. And don't even get me started on the birthday food thing. Children with food allergies in the classroom, *this* I understand. I certainly wouldn't send Hank in with something from which one or more children would be excluded due to allergies. I would accommodate that in a heartbeat. But the "wellness committee" chairwoman (I'm not making this up) telling us that they promote "healthy snacks" for treats and special days like raisins, fruit, and non-food items like bookmarks (!), and discourage sugary cupcakes and cookies just makes me kind of pissed off. These are 5 YEAR OLDS. Let them be kids.

Overall, the level of hot air, and quite frankly b.s., in the auditorium this morning left me feeling drained and unhappy. Is this what I want for Hank? Constant testing, locked doors, and birthday raisins? I don't know. And I feel trapped, because especially if we want to have another baby, putting Catholic school tuition into the budget until Mike goes back to work full-time just isn't happening. And maybe I should give the school more of a chance than a 2 hour orientation.

Mike assured me that after he's working full-time again next year, if we're unhappy with the school, we can switch Hank to Catholic school. At that point, he'd only have just finished kindergarten, so he'd be young enough that a switch shouldn't be traumatic. We'll see.

But I'm feeling decidedly down again. I'm trying my best not to let that fester. God always works things out, even if we can't see how right at the present moment. I tend to always want to be in constant motion, and trying to do things before I allow enough time for proper discernment and contemplation. Sometimes I just need to leave God more room and time to work, kwim? I'm trying to do that right now. Trying very hard, I promise :)

3 comments:

  1. Yuck, I hate it when cars have problems, it seems like it's never an easy and cheap fix!

    That is kind of discouraging about school. It is true that schools are no longer like they were when we were little. I'm younger than a lot of the mom bloggers and schools have even changed since I was in grade school. You're right, it is about testing (although many times those test prove nothing) and this rigid structure.

    As far as affording Catholic school, have you ever looked into seeing if they have tuition assistance? At my parish, they have a program where members of the parish (many times people without children such as grandparents) donate money so that families can afford a good Catholic education. Some schools are also willing to barter if you have a service you can offer (custodian, accounting, librarian, cleaning the rectory etc). Just something to think about!

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  2. Here's hoping for a better day today.

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  3. Thanks ladies! Good suggestion, Allison. I'm going to talk more about the school thing in today's post :)

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