Scott had his initial interview at the new place he will be working at starting in August in Norwalk, CT so while he was doing that in the morning the kids and I toured schools in the area. About a week prior I started my research, all over again for schools in CT.
Back in the beginning of February I posted a blog about my hairy experience finding a preschool here in NYC that you can read about (here). Come to find out months later all that stress and worry and time spent researching, touring, asking questions, evaluations was all for nothing! I have to laugh about it or I might cry. Pulling him out of school here in NYC also meant we had to deal with a heavy drop fee. Scott keeps telling me that we need to think of it as an investment in his education and it was piece of mind that we had a spot reserved for him at a good school in NYC. Okay, whatever but I could have done a lot with that money!!!
I zeroed in on schools in Stamford, Norwalk and Wilton to start and found a few options in each of those towns. Researching schools in CT wasn't as hard or as stressful compared to finding schools in NYC. Maybe that's because at this point I consider myself a seasoned pro, ha! I knew what I was looking for and quickly narrowed down my options from about 30 to 5. Most schools got crossed off the list fast because of their location, price, no availability or we'd have to switch schools for Mikey after only one year. Then I crossed a few more schools off the list because while they may have had a spot available for Mikey there wasn't a school close enough for me to take Katie too or vice versa or their pick up and drop off schedule were at the same time and I obviously can't be at 2 places at once..... and before you knew it I had 5 options.
Yikes! I hope I like at least one of them! If I didn't like them, I don't know what I would do. This was pretty much the last week for schools in CT and while some schools offered summer camps there was only 1 that I was looking at that offered that and I feel like you can't really get a feel or a sense of a school until you see it in action. It feels completely different in the summer time when there is no one there! So this was my one and only chance at finding a school for them.
So fingers crossed and appointments made we hit all 5 schools one right after another. The kids were troopers and really enjoyed checking out the schools. Mikey was super cute and when asked told everyone his name was Michael and Katie's name was Katherine and he was 5 and she was 3. I swear he has been 5 for the past year. He really really really wants to be 5! Mikey understood when we were going to check out a school for him and when we were checking out a school for Katie and kept referring to those schools as his school or Katie's school.
So out of those 5 schools I loved 2 of them and the 3rd one while I liked it, Mikey would have to go into their pre-k 4 program based on his age and we really wanted to put him in a pre-k 3 program. I've found that most parents in CT who have kids with birthdays later in the year hold their kids back, especially boys which is exactly what we want to do with Mikey. (I remember this was a big sticking point for me with schools in NYC. They all wanted to put Mikey into pre-k 4 which we refused to do.)
The 2 schools that I loved were only 1.5 miles from each other and I was really happy taking Mikey to the one school and Katie to the other. The only problem was that their school days were on opposite days which meant that I'd always have one kid with me....which was fine because I was that in love with both of the schools. But.....I was really looking forward to having some me time to workout, go to the grocery store, do laundry, clean the house, just shut my eyes and breath. Bummer. Guess I'll just have to wait another year.
The school I found for Katie, didn't have any openings for their pre-k 3 program for Mikey which I was totally fine with because I was so in love with both the schools. I then got a call later in the day from the school I found for Katie saying they had an opening in their pre-k 3 program for Mikey. It was their last day of school and one of the families said they were moving and had to give up their spot. What?!!! Yes, the heaven's have opened! Wahoo. This was exactly what I was crossing my fingers and hoping would happen. It's a really great, very friendly, small, private school that I can send both kids too for the next two years and they would both be in school at the same time. I don't think I could have pictured a better scenario! Found the schools....now we just need to find a home that's not too far away from this school and fast before someone takes those spots!!
Moving on to finding a house. That afternoon we spent touring homes in the area. We weren't thrilled with anything we were shown and we back to CT on Saturday for a full day of touring homes. Long story short, we fell in love with the last place we found.
I later told Scott that we always end up in the last place we see and he said that it is because we've found it and we've stopped looking! Haha. That was true in Colorado, Chicago and NYC and now Connecticut too! So now we just wait and see if we get this home and then we can cross that off the list too!
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