Bitch Fight at Kindergarten registration!

I thought I was handling this Stay At Home Mom thing pretty well. After 5 years the kid is still alive, relatively well adjusted and the house hasn't burned down. At the end of the day my motto has always been, "If she is still alive, then I did a good job." So far so good...

What threw me for a loop was registering her for kindergarten. I was the most organized I've ever been. I even had a file folder all ready with the required documents. (If you knew me, you would now how outside of the norm this is.) I didn't want to get lost in the shuffle, I wanted everything to be perfect because I not only wanted to register my daughter for kindergarten, I wanted to sign her up for full-day kindergarten. Where I live in Washington state kindergarten is a half-day affair. By the time you drop your kid off at school you'll barely have time to go home to take a poop before you have to go right back and pick her up. If you want your child to attend full-day kindergarten it's going to cost you. Not only monetarily, but in years off of your life from the stress of waiting to find out if you got in. I mean, if your child got in.

You see, the schools do a lottery to see which of the kids who ask for full-day actually get full-day. No amount of whining, cajoling or bribing will get you what you want. You just have to wait. Things weren't looking good when I noticed that ALL of the parents in the room filling out registration paperwork had the identifiable "Full-Day" set of papers. I'm assuming the half-dayers just waltzed in threw their documents at the nearest person and waltzed out. What do they care? Everyone gets half-day! It's the uber-competitive full-day people that had to sweat it out.

With my five-year-old dancing around me wearing her usual uniform: messy hair, pink floral Capri's (it was about 40 degrees that day), green and white shirt with a penguin on the front, turquoise and red striped socks, and purple keens. Looking good! I was a little nervous when one of the kindergarten teachers starting to speak with my child. What if she said something to the teacher to embarrass me? What if they teacher takes one look at her outfit and declares her unfit for full-day and puts a little asterisk or something on her paperwork noting this fact? I shouldn't have worried, it was me that would ultimately cause the raucous.

I was standing in line minding my own business. I swear! There was a man ahead of me and a woman behind me. We were waiting our turns like good little girls and boy. Then another woman strolls in and sits down at the registration table. 'Scuse me! She totally cut in line! (Okay, I thought this, but didn't say anything. Too wimpy.) Luckily, one of the ladies working the registration table kindly told her that there was a line. The "Cutter" sighed heavily, looked at us schmucks waiting patiently and said, "He's still writing." Then, without thinking - I believe I may have been PMSing that day - I looked her right in the eye and said, "I'm done." Apparently I should have kept my mouth shut.

Mrs. "Cutter" got up with another heavy sigh and stood about 1 inch in front of my face with her back to me. (I certainly hope she doesn't have some sort of fatal lung disease with all of this heavy breathing she's doing. Maybe the lack of oxygen is what made it so difficult for her to see the line of three people behind her.) Being the ever so helpful person that I am I tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, but there is another person behind me." She turned around and in a booming voice said, "I heard you." and turned back around. Obviously she was really confused so it was my civic duty to straighten her out. "No Ma'am, um.. the back of the line is back there." I said as I helpfully pointed past the woman waiting behind me. Again, Mrs. Cutter turned around and even louder than before said, "I HEARD YOU!" Okay...

So, not the most positive beginning to my daughter's elementary school years. In fact, since she was right there we got to have a long talk on the way home about how even some adults can't wait their turn. Fun...

Oh and the result of all of this full-day vs half-day stress? Well, on the day of the lottery everyone I know received a call with the results. Except for me. I waited patiently, but then started worrying that they lost my paperwork. Or Mrs. "Cutter" was the Principal's best friend and thus made sure my daughter would spend her entire academic career at the back of the class next to the kid who was 12, but still in the 1st grade. So, I called the school feeling like one of those over hyper Mommies that has to have everything perfect so as not to disturb her son's precious feelings and will still be wiping Little Johnny's butt until he goes away to college. (That is IF she lets him go away to college.)

Anyhoo, come to find out I wasn't called because they were still trying to add another full-day class because there were so many requests for it. I had to wait. And wait. And wait until they got it figured it out. So I wait with my hands folded together in prayer. Nothing else I can do, yet again the fate of my schedule and "me" time are in the hands of someone else. Isn't that always how it goes when you are a SAHM?