Is She Ready To Graduate Yet?

So we're about six weeks into kindergarten with Princess E - I don't know about her, but I'm exhausted.

I thought kindergarten was supposed to be this fun, let's-get-used-to-going-to-school-for-the-next-16-years (at least) rah-rah time. It's flippin' boot camp, people. Naval Academy plebes have it better.

We have the daily folder check for homework, notes home, etc. We have the weekly list of Spanish words to practice, the math concepts to review over the weekend, and the maps of the U.S. and the world to "look over" as often as possible. We have the contest to see how many books you can read in a month - if you reach a certain level, you get free pizza at Pizza Hut, which seems to me to be in direct opposition to the goals of the P.E. teacher, who has a monthly sports "theme" and seems to have been trained by the Chinese Olympic team in coaching regimens.

Then we have the sign language "songs" practiced weekly to learn new signs, the daily discussions of current events (which of course have to be rehashed over dinner at home - that's led to some interesting discussions!) and the nonstop writing practice. Did I mention the two Bible verses Princess E has to learn perfectly each week? Or the twice-weekly computer lab, which apparently has as a goal having the kids proficient enough to be recruited by Microsoft by first grade?

And I haven't even mentioned the nature walks, the field trips, or the art and music classes and the weekly Bible knowledge quizzes. Or the quantum physics.

Kidding. That's in second grade.

Now, let me mention that Princess E is loving every moment of this. Every day I pick her up and ask how her day went, her answer invariably is "great!" Her teachers are so skilled at making it all fun that she doesn't even realize how much they're cramming into every day.

I, on the other hand, have a main "family calendar" dry erase board up on our wall in the kitchen with all activities color-coded to each person, a Google calendar, a task list on top of the microwave, and a phonics reference sheet, world map, and Bible quiz Q&As next to the field trip permission slips and daily classroom schedule stuck to the refrigerator. I've got a stack of activity reports, teacher updates and "homework" samples piled on a corner of my desk in the kitchen because I haven't figured out where to store these yet, and I've got the Bible verse book permanently affixed to our kitchen island so we can work on the verses any moment we can grab during the week.

It's at this point that I admit my utter weenieness as a mom and bow down to Dana, Adrian and all those other super-moms out there who go one step beyond this and actually, miraculously, seriously home school their kids. I also bow down to Laura, who even though she just had a baby six freaking weeks ago manages to blog more often than I do, take precious photos of both her adorable kids on cute outings around town, and make ridiculously cute signs to mark each child's monthly age milestone.

Y'all just suck - and yes, I say that only because I'm totally jealous of your awesomeness. Or you never sleep and you're taking great drugs - to which I say, "You're holding out on me. Share or I'll spread vicious rumors about you, two ferrets, a gallon of olive oil and the entire defensive line for the St. Louis Rams."

Hey, it worked in high school. Didn't even have to say it in sign language - or quantum physics.