Latest excuse: "I can't clean up my toys because I am very, very small."

Also, when it was time to go to the front of the video store and pay for rentals, she ended  up back in the kids' videos because: "woah, wooooaaaaah, the wind blew me down here."  Relayed by M, since I wasn't there.

I'm gaining a new appreciation for the old standard being assigned a school by map location, and that is where your kid goes, unless you are rich enough to afford private.  This open boundary thing is confusing.

On the other hand, I'm concerned about the school closest to us, so I'm glad we're not stuck there.  Though it would be nice to be able to walk to school in less than five minutes.  I haven't entirely ruled it out.  There is also a Catholic school just a little farther but still within walking distance that I briefly considered, but religion is a big part of Catholic school of course, and I worry that might be confusing when she's so young.  There is a third school I've heard good things about also in walking distance (on nice days, at least, too far for bad weather), but it involves crossing a major road which makes me nervous. 

I'm also attracted by elements of the Cogito program and the Caraway program which are polar opposites.  The Cogito is super structured and has the advantage of teaching strong basics such as proper grammar which seems to get passed over in most schools.  They also wear uniforms, so less angst over labels and clothes.  On the downside, they seem just a little too strict, and they have homework right from the start of kindergarten, and then too much.  The Caraway program is more like homsechooling but in school.  Very Alfie Kohn.  They have a mixed age classroom which is very open to parents and family, lots of parental involvement, and are project based and student lead rather than teacher directed.  I read the Cogito stuff, and the teacher lead thing seems to make a lot of sense to me.  Then I read Kohn and the Caraway stuff, and that all sounds wonderful.   My conclusion is that I'm easily swayed and bad at choices.

There is also French Immersion where she would be taught completely in French. 

Other languages too. though not as common.  There are Christian schools too, though we aren't considering any of them.  On the other side of town, there is a school that focuses on the performing arts, or another school which provides professional dance training along with the normal academics.  There is also a specific hockey training school which provides flexible scheduling to kids playing hockey, and another with flexible scheduling for sports in general.  And returning more to the academic focus, an elementary school which focuses specifically on science.

It's all a bit mind boggling. 

And the most mind boggling bit of all is that in just about seven months my baby will be starting kindergarten.