So, I’ve spent the last, oh, I dunno… four years? thinking that Turbo would be going to Kindergarten next fall. 2012. I mean, I didn’t like sit down and calculate it out when he was born to see what year he’d be packing off to “real” school or anything, but when he turned four I kind of assumed that since next summer he’d turn five, he’d head to preschool that fall. And the other day I was thinking to myself, in kind of a smug parenting, take-the-high-road, make a tough choice cuz it’s good for the kid, kind of way, that maybe he shouldn’t start until the following year. He turns five LATE in the summer, afterall, and he’d probably be one of the very youngest in his kindergarten class. Plus, if he starts in 2012, he’ll be 3 years ahead of Lunchbox in school, which is a good enough span that they won’t know the same kids, might not have the same teachers, etc. I was thinking that it might be better for both boys if they were closer in school, and maybe that was reason enough to hold Turbo until 2013. Then I was talking to the other moms on the street while the kids rode their bikes around the cul-de-sac this afternoon and told them what I was thinking, and they looked all confused. And I got that feeling that you get when you’ve only just realized that you are an idiot, because they were both looking at me like I was sadly misguided. And in a very gentle voice, one of them told me that the cutoff for public school here is September anyway. Turbo’s birthday is at the end of August. So the choice was never mine anyway. The boys will be 2 years apart, as they should be. And we can just take it in the junk for one more year of crazy expensive Montessori preschool. So much for all my big plans next year of saving money, moving Lunchbox to a closer school so that I don’t drive a full hour between leaving the house and getting to work to drop them off, etc… The best laid plans, yada yada. Poop.
But in the long run, this is the right thing for Turbo, who is not the most socially adept small person at this early age. One more year will do him good.
I’m not upset… I guess I was just kind of ready to dive on into the public school system. Some part of me has felt like he’s such a big kid, and he’s ready… maybe it was just me missing the structure of elementary school myself. I loved elementary school. Not so much junior high and high school… and maybe letting Turbo have another year to mature will give him the advantage socially that I didn’t seem to have.
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Wait, he’ll turn 5 in August? That means he makes the cutoff, so why won’t he be able to go to public school? Isn’t the cutoff Sept. 1 as in you must be 5 by Sept 1? Or maybe I misread it.
Yes, Deanne… it turns out that the real problem is just that I’m an idiot. September does come after August. So, yeah, he’ll be, uh, 5. Which is exactly perfect if you want to go to kindergarten.
I’m way confused. The last paragraph you wrote makes me think you aren’t sending him next year, but then the comments above makes it sounds like you could which you wanted to anyway…right??? WHUCK? lol
Hey EE: Yes, we are going to send him. The original dilemma was whether I should keep him back to keep he and Lunchbox a year closer in school since he’ll be one of the youngest kids in his class. But then I thought I couldn’t send him because we’d miss the cutoff. Then I realized that I’m an idiot and that we can. And so we will. And then I had a glass of wine and vowed to quit thinking about things so long that they turn upside down and make no sense.
lol. oh. got it!