Just because I'm dumb, doesn't mean my kid is

So today was preschool registration. It seems small, but a big event in Ava's life. She has been talking about going to school for the last year. It is her dream. She actually was willing to get up and get dressed and listen to me for the most part this morning. That means she was serious about going. I read on the website last night that the preschool is in high demand so we might want to come early to get our first choice. Pffft. This is preschool in the suburbs, not Manhattan! So my goal was to try to get there a few minutes before 9. I was not about to line up outside for a couple hours with both of the kids, especially when I was up late.

So I get in the building and see a sign directing me to preschool registration. I get in line. I am the third person in line and feeling pretty good about myself. Other people start coming and getting in line. One person has a little laminated number in her hand...what? what is this??? Someone from the school goes and gets us numbers that were apparently in front of the sign directing me where to go. It is ok, the two moms in front of me didn't have them either, so I am not the only one who missed that. I was a little nervous and then I see that my number is 28. Well that is easy! Most people around me seemed to have the 3 year old form with them (they were color coded) so I didn't have a lot of competition. They then have us sit down in the auditorium and there is a table up front and a dry erase board with a tally of available slots in each class. Total number of 4 year old preschool available: 4. 4!!! Suddenly 28 is not looking so good. They announce that if we can't get in at our desired location, we can register for one of their three other locations. That is good because I was worried that I would then have to pack up and head across town to register at the other school and hope to still find a slot available. We wait and we wait and we wait...really it was only 25 minutes. Anyway, our number is called and I am told there are still slots available for the afternoon class. I hand over my k4 form and check. She tells me my check is for too much, so I write her another check. (I had gone looking and found the starter set of checks from a random checking account, we just transfer money into for bill payments...) The woman handling our registration introduces herself and says that Ava will be in her class. They chat for a while and Ava attempts to wow her with her great knowledge of colors by talking about Rhys' hat. I pack up and head out, because people are still waiting and everyone is a little tense that I am going to take their slot in the class they want.

In the car, I do the math and figure out that she had me write the check for the registration fee for a k3 class. I come home and look online and see that she is also the k3 lead teacher. So I call and leave a message asking them to verify which class Ava is registered for. While I am doing this someone is beeping in on the other line, probably making my message sound very disjointed. It is a co-worker. She is telling me that the school just called there to verify my home number because they had been trying to call me and couldn't get through. I had combined the first half of my home number with the last half of my cell. Excellent. So I go to get the home phone expecting them to call me at any minute and see there is a message on the machine. I listen to it and it is in fact the school calling to say there seemed to have been a mix up. Not only is Ava now registered in a k3 class with the k4 form, the check I wrote had the date in the amount section. I finish the message and go get my cell to call her back and see that I had a missed call on my cell from her. I am leaving her a message and I see the woman from the school is beeping in. I end up saying something really dumb on the message like, "this is you beeping in now so I will stop talking." I explain to her that the woman registering me told me to write a new check and must not have paid attention to the fact that I turned in a k4 form, since pretty much nobody there was registering for 4 year olds. There were 2 more slots available, so Ava got in the correct class. I just have to go drop off a valid check.

So the school's first impression of me: I can't fill out my phone number, I can't read forms (though really their teacher couldn't read, not me) and I can't write out a check correctly...don't worry, Ava knows her colors.