early bird gets the worm

I was up at 4AM today for preschool registration. Absolutely ridiculous. There are a lot of things I would willingly wake up at 4 AM - Kegs & Eggs, Black Friday shopping back in the day, work, concert tickets, even a trip to the gym. Preschool registration is definitely not something I looked forward to. It is insane. Parents camp out in the parking lot all night so they can be first in line to sign up for registration. I was so nervous about sleeping through my alarms I woke up several times last night to check what time it was.

Today I pulled in at 4:50 and see three other cars just sitting there. Several other cars continue to pull in and still we just sit there. No one wanted to get out of their cars and people continued to pull in. I was definitely not going to be up at 4 AM to end up 25th in line when you were finally allowed to sign in. Even more insane. I got out of the car and went and stood by the door. Of course every other single person in the parking lot decided to exit as soon as I did. A line of 15 or so people formed immediately and cars continued to pull in the parking lot. One of the Dad's was super grouchy about being up so early and told me he was the first one there. And he was signing in first. He also knew who was second and third and they were going in front of me too. Total Oscar the Grouch. I smiled politely and said "Absolutely. When your wife is first to register this morning you can thank me for getting out of my car and forming an actual line while you were still waiting in your car." The pre-school director came at 5:45, I signed in and went home to wait for the actual registration at 9AM.

I did get both girls registered and it only took 15 minutes. I even got all the days I wanted for both of them. Waiting in line early this morning was worth it. Totally insane but worth it. There were at least 45 people waiting when I left. I know they were all waiting longer than an hour. Maybe next year I'll have to be there at 4AM. Or maybe I'll just ask Jason to go.