Wait listed again!

We received the letter from the county Pre-K program. Mayhem is 6 on the waiting list. It includes the usual caveats about how they were overwhelmed by the number of people who showed up & how there were only 40 spaces & how if a space opens they will begin filling from the list & you could hear as early as May 12 that your child has been given a place & please call if you don't want your name on the list so others can move up.  No surprises there. It is identical to the one I received last year for Havoc. Down to his place on the wait list....  hhhhmmmmm....  Odd coincidence isn't it that both my kids end up 6th on the list?  Makes me wonder if there is actually a list or if they don't just call their friends & relatives if a spot opens up.  I'd never know if they did.

Mayhem is also wait listed for a spot in a private pre-school a couple miles from the public school Havoc will be attending. Fortunately there was no charge for waiting.  Most of the preschools around here charge you to apply & then hit you with a fee to be put on the waiting list if there are no spots available and I can't afford multiple application & wait fees. We only applied at one private school, hoping Mayhem could get into the public program.  This leaves me with no place for Mayhem come fall. Most of the spots were filled by mid-January. The 2 schools that might have a space open cost too much and are in the opposite direction of Havoc's school, making pick up and drop off and meeting bus schedules a challenge.  There is one place that I would like to get him into, that I think we can afford & DH can take him to school in the morning & I can pick him up at noon.  I am 105% positive they have no spaces open & the wait list is too long to bother paying to be on it. People were signing up for it in December. But I called & left them a message just in case. Getting him a spot there would be ideal because it is in town, where my gym is, and decent grocery stores and Wal Mart & Target. Driving there to pick him up would be efficient for my errands & since DH is already going there, there would be very little additional gas cost.  Whereas if he goes to the one he's already listed with I am back to driving twice a day down to an area where there is nothing available but a crappy Food Lion and spending $250 a month on 'school gas'.

In a perfect world 6 people would chose not to send their kids to the public program and Mayhem would get a spot there, complete with bus transportation with his brother. But we don't live in Perfect.