Jumping Through Hoops

It's amazing what you have to do to register a child for school these days. I had no clue, being as Caitlin has been in private school for 3 years now. Even when we enrolled her in kindergarten (public school), I didn't remember having so many darn forms to fill out.
Today Christian, Caroline, and I went down to Belmar Elementary to get Caitlin registered. Let me interject here that I had to jump through some hoops already to be able to register her in a different district. *In case you haven't read my blog in a while or are new, the reason we are going out of district is because we have a contract on a house in Belmar. We felt that if we were going to move soon, we didn't want Caitlin to start in one school and have to transfer out soon. Just saving ourselves some steps basically* I had to come up with a copy of the contract on the house to show proof of residence (well, ALMOST residence if that makes sense), shot records, birth certificate, SS#...I could go on and on. Basically I had to empty out her folder in the fire-proof lock box to take it all with me.
Can I just say I feel really old right now having a 4th grader?!?

Back to the subject at hand. So we get to Belmar bright and early this morning, and there weren't a whole lot of people standing in line. There were a lot sitting around though. After looking closer, I notice that every adult in the room has a huge stack of papers they are filling out.
Grrrrrrreat. Not really what I want to do with a 4 year old and 21 month old in tow. Ack.

After giving Caitlin's life-in-a-folder to a lady for copies to be made, I grabbed a packet and began to fill it out. Every now and then, a worker would come up and ask if I needed help.

Yes, I need help. Wanna take the other 2 kids for a walk while I try to concentrate and remember what my firstborn's date of birth and middle name are?!? While you're at it, how 'bout you take the ink pens away from them so they don't poke each others' eyes out?
Thank you.

Then the PTA representative comes by. I immediately wanted to disappear. Something about signing my name to a paper and committing to help out in the classroom gives me the heebiejeebies. I'll send cupcakes and supplies every now and then, but I really have a hard time going to the classroom and making nice with the other moms.

Something that I'll obviously have to get over. I guess....

Anyway, she wanted to know if I was interested in helping (I've addressed that already) and then if I wanted to purchase Caitlin's school supplies in bulk through them. Hmmmm.....now what's the markup on that?!? Should I or should I not? That was the question. Why is it that John is always teaching a class when I am in need of advice??? *deep sigh*
So I decided to buy the supplies. I reached for the checkbook and realized I had no checks for that account!! Really? Now what...
After fumbling through the purse, I found yet another checkbook that would do for the moment. Of course I'd have to jump through hoops later to transfer money between the accounts, but at least for now the sweet, wonderful, perfume-a-holic PTA lady would have her check.

20,000 pages and an ink pen later, I finished. I then had to wait in front of 3 women sitting behind a table--in a row--while they looked over everything and added checkmarks here and there. Oh! Let's not forget the fact that they couldn't seem to understand that I was enrolling a 4th grade girl that happened to be away at camp. They kept addressing Christian and asking him questions. I'll chalk it up to a busy day for them. No other explanation works.

I'm glad the schools are so on top of things that they make you fill out so much paperwork. After all, it would only be necessary to know anything and everything about Caitlin before she goes there---I'm surprised they didn't ask for the date of her pottytraining, when she lost her 1st tooth, how many siblings John and I have, and what we keep the temperature of our house set on. :)
I'm excited about Belmar, and I hope she will be too. We've already bought some school clothes and--obviously the supplies--so she's ready to go! She gets back from church camp tomorrow, so I'll have to do a post after she tells me about her exciting time there. Stay tuned...