snapshots

No wonder parenting is a full time job. I just spent 6 hours driving 40 km trying to register Risa for kindergarten starting in Sept. Which is not quite as bad as camping outside a school for 4 days, but I honestly expected a 20 minute process today, with a long wait that I could sit out at home. I was assured by other friends that this would not be "a big deal".

Being a manager for 2 years has taught me a little about recognizing systems problems, and boy does the Vancouver School Board have a big one.

First alarm bell is the fact that we can't register Risa directly at the school of our choice. I had to drive 25 minutes to a central processing center in hopes of getting Risa into a school that's 7 minutes walk from our house. This one center is for processing children who are not Canadian born. I had to dig up all of her documents to prove that she is our daughter and is a Canadian citizen. After waiting for 3 hours, I was then told that I needed to bring proof of citizenship for both me AND Raymond. Proving that Risa is a citizen was not enough. Our whole family was being put through the grinder.

So I had to drive all the way home and back to bring in our passports. It was not explicit in the website instructions that both parents' identifications were necessary. What a fiasco. Risa held up through all the travelling very well and we had a nice (albeit late) lunch out together.

To cap things off, I tried to register Risa for skating lessons at the nearest rink (5 minutes drive). The reception counter was closed and a notice posted that on-line registration was now available when it wasn't before. So back at home I go online and the skating registration server is down. So much running around.