Kids are expensive!

For those readers who have kids (esp more than one), I know I don't need to tell you that twice.

There's the obvious up-front expenses of diapers, baby wipes, formula, bottles, baby food and all that miscellaneous baby equipment that's essential (strollers, car seats, high chairs)... not to mention clothes that they outgrow every couple months. Or couple weeks, if you're a freak like Allan.

Then they get older and stop using diapers, start sleeping in normal beds and start eating regular grownup food alongside us at the dinner table, sans booster seat. They even help with the housechores! Yay, progress!

But then they get even older and it's time to start thinking about where to enroll them in school. If you're lucky and you have a reasonably well-mannered child AND live in a place with low crime and an excellent school district, then... well, you're lucky. For some of us, private school is the only option. Especially with an easily-influenced hardhead like Todd. It goes without saying that the word "private" by definition implies that you pay tuition (unless you live in the UK-- strangely enough, what the Brits call "private" school is what we call public school. Go figure). But if both parents work full-time, then there's the added cost of after-school care, too. Fun. Nothing quite like carving out $1000/month in our budget, knowing that's just an average estimate and could very easily go up.

I just spent some time perusing the websites of potential schools I want to enroll Todd in this coming Fall. Some had scant information, some had volumes. I did my comparisons and narrowed it down to a top handful of choices. At that point I downloaded and printed off application forms, just to make sure I had a checklist of things I would need to supply (like immunization records). What I wasn't prepared for, however, was flashbacks of 15 years ago, when I was applying to various universities. Not the mindless humdrum of filling out basic info multiple times, but the agony of formulating the perfect admissions essay. And the hesitance of bothering my teachers to supply letters of recommendation.

Some of these grade school applications could rival college applications! Detailed questionnaires. Goals for your kid. His strengths and weaknesses. His development history. Expectations. References. Time to sharpen my pencil and put my thinking cap on!

There was an episode of Law and Order (CI) on recently, about a deranged mother who shot 3 parents of toddlers at a prestigious preschool so that her own son could move up in the waiting list and be offered admission. Madness, you say, and you would be right.

But when you consider just how much it costs to get your kid a good education, and how much effort it takes to get him INTO a good school in the first place, I can understand how frustrating it is to sit on a waiting list, unsure of your next move.

Onward we shall forge. We get to do it all over again if we move. If we don't, and we remain in Santa Barbara, we get to go through this process all over again when Todd enters high school (or middle school, in some cases). And then comes college. At least THAT will be paid for. With costs rising ever more, we started saving when he was born. One less thing to worry about a dozen years from now :-)