Wee Babe and I toured Posh Pre-Kindergarten School on Thursday. Miss Karen, the Headmistress, paraded us from classroom to classroom, where we met most of the students and all of the teachers. Though I felt utterly and completely under scrutiny — and, god, you should see the questions on the application pack! — I'm holding firm to my decision that this school is where I want Wee Babe to go.

Posh School is so fabulous, you wouldn't even believe it. The kids there study French, learn how to read, use computers, and sing songs. They have circle discussions about how people are the same even if they're different. They eat hamburgers or lasagne or chicken salad for lunch. Outside, they get to play on the biggest, most brightly coloured jungle gyms. They plant flowers and stay late for ballet class. They don't have "Rules;" they practise "Good Habits."

The best part? Wee Babe loved it! She kept flashing me her Marilyn smile on the sly. The whole time, seriously. With this look in her eyes that said, "Gee, Mom, why didn't you bring me here sooner?!" And I think Miss Karen adored her, too. Wee Babe engaged her in conversation from the moment we arrived until the moment we turned to leave. She told Miss Karen all about the bunny we saw in the 3-4 class and the dinosaur mural on the wall of the infant room, and soon, Miss K. was introducing her with the suffix "and you should hear her talk!" I think they'll get on fine. Wee and Miss Karen are both Geminis, you know. Heh.

Yes, after pre-screening eleven schools, weeding out over half of those and touring the rest, I'm sure. This is the place. And I don't care if I do sound like a Yuppie convert, dammit, this is important to me.

Now if only I can convince Manly Man. He's all bent to hell and back about sending her anywhere other than the daycare two blocks up. Daycare. It costs nearly the same as Posh School, and she wouldn't be doing anything there. Well, except sit in the same room all day long with a dozen other runny-nosed beasts, all hitting each other over the head with dolls and tonka trucks. I know; I toured. I might as well keep her at home than send her two blocks up.

Does he even listen to me? I mean, at all? No. And that's the trouble. It'd be different if he actually listened to and disagreed with my reasons for wanting to send her to a pre-k. It'd be a whole 'nother ballgame if he thought she was too young, or it was too expensive. I could deal with it if he said he felt she wasn't as stifled by Lonely Only-ness coupled with brute force intelligence as I think she is. But he doesn't do or say or feel any of those things. He doesn't even consider them!

His big hairy beef is that he doesn't want "this school thing" to inconvenience him. How that would even be possible is beyond me; he's at work all day! Not only that, but I'm going to pay the tuition out of my paychecks, shuttle her to and from, attend teacher-parent conferences, keep tabs on her level of enjoyment and happiness. How the hell is it going to inconvenience him?

Uhh...could you tell me when exactly it was that I became a single-parent? Don't you have to be, you know, single for that to work?