NO! You may not!

We have orientation at Erin's school on Thursday in the afternoon. We were planning on all going, and it being nice. It's going to be hectic, of course, because we'll be meeting Erin's teacher, getting the tour of the new school building, and also registering her for violin lessons and finding out the details on that. There is a lot to do, but I figured it would be fine because me and Thak could handle it all together.

WRONG! The unit has decided to have a safety day on Thursday (mind you, they do this about twice a month, and it's the same crap every single time) and there is absolutely no way they will let any soldier out of it for any reason at all. That's crap for many reasons. For one, like I said, they do this like twice a month. It's not like they're going to be telling Thak anything he hasn't heard dozens of times already. For another, and more glaring reason, when El Paso Independent School District does anything, Ft. Bliss practically treats it like a national holiday. I mean, soldiers barely have to go to work at all on their kids' orientation days, first day of school, last day of school, or anything in between. If EPISD says jump, Ft. Bliss starts jumping and doesn't stop until told. Sounds great until you think about the fact that a huge part of the city is not even serviced by EPISD (our metro area has EIGHT school districts, three within the city limits. Even if Erin attended public school, she would not be in an EPISD school because of where we live, and we are well within the city limits.) If anyone whose kids aren't in EPISD schools has to do something for their kids, relating to school, they're told no most of the time.

Apparently, unless you live in an absolutely disgusting part of town, and send your kids to absolutely disgusting public schools, you don't count. Real nice, Ft. Bliss, real nice.

What do you want to bet I'll be walking her to class on the first day of school by myself, too, even though every Army brat in an EPISD school got walked to class by their daddy in uniform on the first day of school. It's a nice tradition... one our family is excluded from because we seek a better education for our daughter. Real nice.