1. The public school to which she would be assigned
This is a frightening option. There are a lot of unknowns that fact into my daughter attending the school to which she assigned. Up until this coming school year, school choice was in place in our county. You could put your child in pretty much any school in the county, as long as there was room. Now, students entering kindergarten, middle school, or high school are assigned to the “close to home” school. We live in a location in our county where if she was place in a school just to out east, things would be as good as they can get. If she is placed in the school to our west, I would be frightened to drop her off each morning. Since the county is not even putting out the maps to show the school placements until this coming week, I did not feel comfortable replying on this alone.

2. A county charter school
These are privately run school, funded by the county. It is like attending private school, but for free. I found three charter schools in our area and I filled out the applications for the two I liked: one for the arts and one that teaches classes in both English and Greek. State law mandates that all kindergarten students entering the system have an equal and fair chance if they want to attend the charter schools, the placement is determined by lottery. My daughter did not get into the lottery for either of the chatter schools. She is on a waiting list, but I am fairly certain we will not see her name come to the top of the list.

3. A county fundamental school
There are several fundamental schools in our district. In fact, their track record is so tremendous that districts from all over the nation come here to study the program and use it as a model. A fundamental school is back the basics. There is homework every night, a stricter uniform code, mandatory parent meetings and participation, and stricter behavior guidelines. Unlike other public schools, students can be asked to leave a fundamental school if they or their parents do not live up to the agreements we sign when we choose to place them the school. A fundamental elementary school further north in the county is number one in FCAT scores in the state. The one closer to home is in the top 10. Entrance is determined by lottery for these schools as well. My daughter did receive an invitation to attend one of the fundamentals and I accepted.

4. The private, Christian school she currently attends
I love the school where my daughter attends pre-K. I think I could qualify for next year to use a state scholarship, but in subsequent years when I am working fulltime, I sill surely no longer qualify. Therefore, the expense might eventually mean I have to pull her out of the Christian school and place her in the public system, at which point I may not be able to get her into the fundamental school and I will be left with only the option of her “close to home” school. I am still considering biting the bullet and just finding the money to keep her there. In the meantime, the fundamental school I listed above is my safety.

Should it be this hard? I just want to make sure she is in the best place I can find. She is smart and creative, but emotional and easily distracted. I do not want her lost in a larger school or overlooked if she ends up in the middle of the pack. And, since I am making this decision on my own, I feel all the more pressure. I never imagined I would be alone in planning my daughter’s education, or in funding it – but that is my reality.

I am waiting to hear from one more charter school, one that teaches some subjects in Greek. Also, I am waiting to hear if she got into the fundamental school. If all else fails, I will probably decide to keep her in the Christian school vs. her local “close to home” public school.

When I was a kid, my mom took me to birthday parties and dropped me off. Then, I would have cake and ice cream and games with my little friends and my mom would return to pick me up when the party was finished.

I’ve noticed that nowadays parents stay at birthday parties with their children. Every single child’s birthday party I have been to since my daughter was born had more adults than children and the hosts felt compelled to serve drinks and adult snacks to the parents. The, a bunch of parent who do not know each other that well stand around looking at the kids. It’s weird.

I was OK with this for my daughter’s and second birthdays, because the people we invited were all relatives, family friends and their children. I’ve avoided big parties since then, though. I just cannot fathom having all of the parents of the kids in my daughter’s class standing around my house.

So, this year and last year I let my Princess choose one friend and we attend the Pirates & Princess Party at Disney. Last year we went with my sister and nephew. This year my little Princess chose the daughter of one of my best friends. They are only 10 weeks apart and quite close. The Disney event is a blast. We dress the girls up in their dresses and rock the park, where there are typically NO lines and a ton of fun meet and greet events.

I know I will have to face the whole party issue soon. I will probably wimp put and do a party at one of thiose facilities that has jumper houses and slides, rather than have strangers in my home who expect a glass of wine and crab dip. And, I’ll be more than ready for the day Princess just wants to have a few girls over for a slumber party. ?

So, what I do is try as often as possible to eat at restaurants that offer a free meal for my daughter. Most that do this kind of promotion will only do it one or two days a week. Cody’s Roadhouse, for example, let’s two children eat free for every paying adult on Monday and Tuesday nights. Denny’s also lets two kids eat free with each adult, on Tuesday and Saturdays (I think).

I keep a Word document on my desktop that is organized in columns by the day of the week. Then, if I hear about a local restaurant that offers a free kids meal, I type it into the appropriate column on my document. Then, when my daughter and I want to eat out, I just take a look at my list to see what restaurants will work for whatever night of the week it happens to be.

Although some chains do have a Kids Eat Free promotion, you still need to check to make sure your local restaurants participate. I used to take my daughter to the Perkins in Gainesville, FL all of the time to eat free, but the Perkins where I live now said they had never run such a promotion.

I titled this sneaky mom, but that is not to be confused with dishonest mom. What I am about to describe is done right in front of my daughter. I even told her the real names for the thing I add to her milk and what they are good for when it comes to her healthy. I was lucky in that my daughter thinks these additions are the cat’s pajamas.

First, I add two capsules (which is appropriate for her body weight) of Sweet Kid. I break open the capsules and mix the powder in the milk. Sweet Kid contains blue-green algae, wheatgrass juice powder, and acidophilus and other cultures.

Then, I add the correct does of Baby’s Jarro-Dophilus, which is a probiotic supplement for children. Every serving of this powder has 3 billion of those friendly bacteria your gut and body need to stay healthy.

That is all I am adding as of now, but the experiment has gone so well that I may use my daughter’s chocolate milk for all manner of medications she might need to take her allergies this coming season.

Believe it or not, though, it is time for me to get the final paperwork at schools for this fall. She can simply go to one of the local public schools, but there are other options. I need to figure out, first of all, if I can afford to continue sending her to the Christian school. I am pretty sure I cannot and I think I bring in quite literally five hundred dollars too much to get a state scholarship for the school. I am absolutely that middle-class single parent that is stuck in between brackets.

There are three charter schools within a reasonable driving distance of the house I have her application in at the arts school, but I have to finish the more detailed applications required by the other two schools. Both of the schools have a focus on Greek, and that makes sense since we have a large Greek population in the north part of the county. I am quite keen in her attending a school where she can learn a useful second language.

The charter schools in Florida must use a lottery system for all students who would like to enter for kindergarten, just to keep things fair. All I can do is pray. If she gets the lottery at one of the charters, she will get a private school education for the price of a public school – free.

My dream was to home school, but with my divorce that is probably not an option. As it stands, I am floored that I have to be thinking about her schooling for this coming fall so early. I actually started all of this back in November, so it has been a lengthy process already.

At the end of last summer I was approached to contribute to a blog network as the author of a parenting blog, but I became frustrated by the lack of support I received from those who ran the network. The traffic and links I was promised never surfaced and therefore the blog did not generate income. Without income, I was not paid for my efforts. I figured if I was not going to be paid, I may as well be blogging on a platform where I have complete control.

My Mothering blog is a direct reaction to that experience.

I’m not sure how often I will post, but one thing is for sure – the things I write about will all be about parenting and life as a mother. In particular, I am a single mother and I know that along with that role there are many special and unique issues. I hope I can adequately work that theme into my blogging.