School Girl

In Prieto news, we've been in the process of seeing if Gigi (who just turned 4) will be able to start at the local Waldorf School this fall.  This week we went to a reception for new parents at the school and although I'm very solidly NOT a weepy person, being there touched on something deep and I found myself brimming with tears at the 7th grade quartet playing gorgeous music in the background, the students who were there serving as ushers, the art on the walls, the depth, kindness and insight of the other parents at the school.  As a child I probably took a lot of my growing up in a Waldorf School for granted, but now as a parent I feel so awed to think that perhaps I will be able to provide THIS for my own child.  THIS music, THIS art, THIS community, education and worldview.

And then today it was confirmed that we can't afford to send her next year.  We were so, so disappointed.  We wrote an email to the administrator thanking him for his help and told him that we would try to enroll Gigi again next year.

And then we received an email back from him, not an hour later.  It said that the Financial Aid committee members just happened to be there when he received our email and they would be happy to accept what we had put forward as our doable amount this year.  Marcos read the email out loud and we all yelped and hollered, and it scared Gigi and she cried!

So we are full of excitement, and so much gratitude.  With two years of coop preschool that we have loved so much, I feel like I have given Gigi what I can, and it's time for her to be in a school setting.  Financially this will be a real stretch for us, but I have been so touched that although Marcos has never spent a day as a Waldorf student, he is so fully on board with this idea of providing a Waldorf education to our children, at the expense of other things that are also important to us.

There is a lot of gratitude in our home tonight.