just another day at work

we're getting a new online application program for our school. to figure out any glitches, we were asked to fill out applications for our children (or our made up children) to see if anything came up. and so, i got to work filling it out for soon-to-be-6th grader neville junior (i had used frodo drogoson on something else [frodo's dad's name was drogo, btw]). it actually was quite good that i did, as we discovered that you're not able to fill it out if your child started school outside of the united states, or if your child's most recent school is outside of the u.s. we also worked out what to do about juniors (stick the jr. in the last name box). after i finished with little neville's, i asked the one in charge if this system works for siblings, as our current system won't allow students to have the same email address, which ordinarily is fine, but sometimes doesn't work if a family has a family email address. 'oh, i don't know. fill out an app for your other kid.' 
and so i added soon-to-be-8th grader alice (who goes by lissy). she has brown hair and dark blue eyes, freckles, and a huge smile, complete with braces. i know because our school requires pictures, so i googled one (little neville looks just like his daddy, so that was easy enough). i also had to write essays by each of them, stating why they want to take online classes. one of little neville's reasons was that sometimes kids don't understand when other kids are different [ie. wizards] and one of lissy's reasons was that she loves animals [ie. magical creatures] and can take classes about them during the day if she's able to do her other school work at her convenience. (lissy's actually best at charms, but what 12-year-old girl doesn't love unicorns?) they were very careful to adhere to the statute of secrecy.
as i went to tell the person in charge that it worked to enroll siblings she said, 'so you've been in england, why are you here now?' my husband neville has time off from teaching to study north american plant-life, of course. it was only supposed to be a year, but professor sprout kindly agreed to come back and teach for two (did i mention alice's middle name is pamona?) when she saw how hard it was for neville to decide where to go to study in his one year. we'll be traveling with the seasons, spending a total of one year in northern states and one in the south.

angie was making fun of me for how much thought i was putting into this and how much fun i was having with it. i turned and looked at her. 'this from the person who is currently making a birth certificate for her daughter and creating adoption papers.' :)