Oops!, Apartment Hunting, and Kindergarten

Wow! I keep meaning to blog about our wonderful Christmas and New Year... I really do. But, I've been super BUSY with everything and just have been putting it off. So... oops! Sorry about that. I will get it done one of these days.

We have been busy cleaning and un-decorating and organizing. We are doing a "Winter Cleaning", I guess, in preparation for moving. For those of you who don't know, we live about 23 miles or so from Mike's work. Gas is ridiculous, so he normally takes the bus there and back, which is a 2 hour drive each way. Add to that his crazy work schedule, and it's no wonder we never see him! So, when our lease is up in April, we are going to move closer. We are SO excited about being able to see him more, and saving money on all of those bus passes, too.

Another reason for the move, is that the raise is looking to be pretty solid. And I was SO excited about it... until I did the math and realized that when we get the raise in April (right when they would be reviewing our finances for the lease), that we will make JUST over the limit for low-income housing. Which means we will have to get a regular apartment, and they are ridiculously expensive here, so any extra money we would have had, will go toward our new lease.

How utterly ridiculous IS that? I think I was talking to Kristi over Christmas about this same thing. Mike's raise will put us over the limit for the low-income, so we will have to pay more, which puts us back in the low-income (at least in our pocketbooks). It reminds me of when we were in Flagstaff and Mike couldn't work full-time, because then we would lose our insurance through AHCCCS, and I was pregnant and HAD to have insurance, so we had to keep on like we were. The system is a bit messed up, I think.

Anyways, so we have been apartment hunting and cleaning and organizing. Not the most fun things to do, but necessary. Adam is having an especially hard time with all of this. For those of you who know him, he has a REALLY hard time letting things go, it doesn't matter what it is: old toys, broken items, friends, strangers, family, apartments, trash... he literally cries if I don't put his hair into a baggie for him after I give him a haircut. I'm serious. It's bad. He's a pack rat with items (just like his dad), so the past week of cleaning has been a bit tough, and I have had mixed emotions of guilt for sneaking down bags to the car for DI while he's sleeping, and frustration because he can't let things GO. Then today as we were apartment hunting, he cried over losing our apartment. 4 months from now. I'm hoping it's something he outgrows soon. Very soon.

I've also been busy figuring out kindergarten. Aagh! I can't believe Adam's going to kindergarten this year! It's SO crazy! The education is Nevada is 48th in the nation, and I had really hoped that we would be somewhere else when he went to kindergarten that was a bit better (like Connecticut :) ), but it's looking like we are going to be here. I have a few friends in our ward who are/were teachers in Las Vegas, and they all tell me that it's awful here. Kids here are tough and mean and parents don't care if their kids go to school or graduate or how they act, so after a few years, the teachers stop caring, too. I mean, I know that things are rough everywhere in this day and age, but everyone I talk to agrees that things are just... different in Las Vegas.

So, I've been contemplating either a) homeschooling him, just while were are living in Las Vegas; b) finding a good charter school; or c) telling myself to suck it up, and put him in regular school. Sigh... it's a BIG decision. I've been visiting schools and talking to teachers these past few days. I know I probably sound like a crazy, psycho mom, who wants her son going to Harvard someday, so he has to have THE very best education at all. And it's really not that. I want his early learning experiences to be fun and enjoyable, so that he will love learning his entire life. I don't want him around kids at such a young age who will crush his little spirit, like I've seen some kids around our apartment complex do. One program that I'm really looking into, is a distance-learning charter school they have here. They give you all of the materials, you teach your child, and once a week the teacher comes to your house, while you are there, to go over everything. And then once a month or so, the school gets together for field trips and whatnot. It is sounding like a pretty good option. Not a permanent one, I don't want to do this forever, but for now it might work. Decisions, decisions.

Wow... that was probably one of THE most boring posts ever. Oh, well. I got to keep everyone up to date, though, right? Even if it's not very exciting, it's still us.