New information from the school.

We got a huge packet of stuff from Erin's school today. It's mostly pretty standard stuff, but also kind of insane.

For one, we were required to fill out the school lunch form. That was weird because we'd never done it before since the schools she's attended in the past showed what the income guidelines were for free and reduced price lunch, and we didn't qualify. Under the circumstances, filling out the forms would have been a waste of time, so this was our first time to fill out a school lunch form. I'm sure we'll be denied unless the guidelines changed a lot between now and then.

Otherwise, holy crap, school lunches are expensive! $3.20 each! Year before last, it was like $1.50 or something like that. It's good that this school's food program sounds absolutely disgusting, because out of the entire month, Erin only wanted 3 of the lunches, so we'll pay just under $10 for her to eat school lunch 3 times. Fun.

The other thing that's really weird about the way they do lunch here is that we get a calendar at the beginning of each month that has all the lunches written down on their respective days. Then we cross off the days we don't want, and return the calendar, with payment for the days we do want. Then we magically remember which days we chose. That's going to get interesting. Oh, and if she's not going to be at school on a day when she had signed up to eat school lunch, we have to call and cancel her lunch for that day. It's insane.

On the positive side, Erin has decided to take violin lessons through the school. They offer them for $150 a semester, which is a good price. I just hope it doesn't interfere with cheerleading, which she's also wanting to do for football season. This, of course, makes ballet lessons kind of iffy, although I'm still considering it. She really wants to do all three, and I hate to say no, but man, this stuff adds up. Time is the obvious way it does so, but it's also not all that cheap when you figure in everything. We're already well over $200 for one semester with just cheer and violin, and that's before equipment. Adding that to the "donations" we're "strongly encouraged" to make to the school, and the beginning of the year is a bit steep. (Oh, and the uniforms we got her in a size 6/6x fit for now, but I think she's going to outgrow them before the year is out. That's another easy $100 right there. I miss the GOOD children's consignment back in Savannah.) I'm still considering the dance thing, though, because it actually does help with cheer, and I hate making her choose between things she knows she likes (cheer and dance) or denying her the chance to try something else that she may like (violin). Plus, there's a dance studio not even two blocks from our house. I wonder what they charge. I'm still really undecided on the third activity.

Otherwise, I'm glad to know when we have open house at the school. It's on September 2nd in the afternoon. I think we'll find out who Erin's teacher is then, and also turn in all her forms, in addition to learning all the many procedures for drop-off, pick-up, and all that other stuff. It shouldn't be too bad. There are only about 150 kids in the whole school, and that's if all the classes are full, which I'm pretty sure they're not, since there are now radio advertisements for the school, so we may be looking at 100 or fewer students in the entire school for starters. That would be very nice. It'll surely make drop-off and pick-up far less of a zoo than it is at the public schools, which is good since the driveway of the school is about the size of my front yard... so, pretty small.

I think we're all ready to get this thing started. It's kind of to the point where I'm REALLY ready for Erin to go back to school. I know she's ready. She woke up this morning and got dressed in her uniform. LOL I let her wear it as long as she promised not to get it dirty. She did great. All of this area's school districts are already back to school, or will be within the next few days, and we've still got weeks to go. On the positive side, I just ordered Erin's PlanetBox, and hopefully, it will be here before school starts. $70 for a lunchbox (including $10 shipping), was steep, but it will save money in the long run. She will use it for years, and packing lunches is WAY cheaper than paying $3.20 a day for school lunch (hell, the thing will pay for itself inside of two months by that measure!). Plus, she's excited about her new lunchbox. She chose the purple carry bag, and two sets of magnets, Under the Sea, and Rainbow.