I knew that getting Chickeymonkey registered for school would take a little while, but I was thinking in terms of hours.

I was not prepared to spend the entire evening lastnight, and the entire day today, in preschool preparation.

Free Country? The United States? Pfft! You are not free to raise your children as you see fit. This means that you had better get every injection that the government demands you shove into your little babies bodies in the first two years of their life, because God forbid you delay until you feel their bodies can better handle the immunizations, they will NOT be able to go to a public school!

Yes, there are waivers. But for a federally funded preschool program? You have to write an essay about how your religious beliefs conflict with immunizations, and if you score poorly on that essay? Out you and your child go. I was informed that all I would need – since I wasn’t waiving them but just delaying them – was an immunization schedule from our physician. I got that at the beginning of the week.

So here I go into this thing thinking I was prepared lastnight and boy, was I not prepared at all.

The schedule is no good if your child hasn’t even had MMR and Chickenpox vax, and I hate those. And she’d need a lead screening which was just an added “wtf” to the day. I swear, you’d think I was a first time mom or something. Lastnight was all about finding out what my schedule would consist of today.

We started off to the doctor’s office for the “official” form, which wasn’t included in the package. We got that, stopped and had her lead screen test (ouch!) then headed to the grocery store for some school supplies and things, then to drop off her form at the school. Where we are told that “nut-uh, she has to have these other two to even get on the bus.” Sure, okay, I didn’t have anything else I wanted to get done today! We went home, unpacked groceries, had some lunch and scheduled the appointment for those other two vax.

Great news! I get to go pick up the Chickenpox at the hospital pharmacy and take it to the doctor’s office! YAY!

Even better! My insurance told the gal they wouldn’t pay for it if it were billed by the hospital pharmacy so I got to spend $88.86 out of pocket, too!

Bonus! On your mark, get set, GO! I had 20 minutes from the time I received the vax to get it injected into my teenie little Chickeymonkey.

At the doctor’s office, I handed them my checkbook purely out of guilt and asked them to “please, keep it. It’s all yours, anyway.” They thanked me for my offer but declined. So now I have this checkbook, and it’s empty, and who wants it? There’s nothing left.

At the school with the completed form with all required immunizations? The preschool letter-inner shook my hand and thanked me, because apparently I was one of few parents who got my stuff together and took care of things in a timely manner. And I told her if my kid had a temp from these stupid shots and couldn’t attend the first day of school, I would hunt her down and smack her silly. I also told her that I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and seriously considering moving to another country, so if she made me do one more thing to send my child to school I would sit on the floor right there and cry.

I’m not kidding, it’s like enlisting a 3 year old into the Army. I’ll probably get put in jail for failure to include her social security number on the forms, for crying out loud.

So the good news? I lost another half pound yesterday. That’d be about it for the good news, though. 😆