Decisions, Decisions

As part of the school registration process for next year I have to select whether my kids will be attending morning or afternoon sessions (yes, we have a half-day kindergarten program). My ideal? Both kids in the morning. Morning school makes sense. We get up, we get dressed, we have breakfast, we make beds and off we go. We come back, it is lunch time and half the day is nicely accounted for. Unfortunately, the drop-off and pick-up times for kindergarten and the preschool in which C is currently enrolled are within five minutes of each other, and there is no busing available. Meaning that either I need to switch preschools, I need to place them both in the afternoons when the pick up times are staggered a bit better, or one child needs to go in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Switching preschools would make the most sense, except for the fact that this preschool is everything I always wanted in a preschool. The children play with sand and water. There is lots of art. They sing appropriate seasonal songs (played on RECORD PLAYERS people), paint rocks, and make a turkey centerpiece for Thanksgiving. There is no formal curriculum. There is no expectation that children will know how to read by the end of the pre-K program. The highlight of the year? A parent-organized Spring Carnival that involves games like blowing ducks across a wading pool using straws and playing hopscotch. Really.

I just. can't. leave this school. I just can't. So the next logical solution? Put both kids in the afternoon. I would get three afternoons a week to do whatever. Go to the gym. Take a nap. Gasp, read a book. But....C is not a great morning person. Oh, he is up bright and early, but trying to get him out of pajamas and into the car? Painful. Very, very painful. And I fear that our combined laziness would mean that if we had no place to go until 12:30, that we would be racing around at 12:25 trying to get dressed. Which is fine for next year, but would make the 8:25 am start in 1st grade a living hell. In fact, I am somewhat fearful that we might never recover from a year of afternoon school.

My final option is putting C in morning kindergarten, and A in afternoon preschool. Which, while fine and lovely for them, leaves not a second in any day that belongs to me. AND puts me in the car four freaking times a day. Because C will not be attending our neighborhood school that is two blocks away. No, he will most likely be attending kindergarten on the other side of town because of a nightmare of a redistricting situation.

So what do I do folks? What do I do?