Katie's Kindergarten Registration? Already?

I got the letter from Katie's elementary school the other day telling me that we're scheduled for kindergarten registration next month.

This seems to be happening just a tiny bit too fast.

I checked off the list of things I needed and, happily, seem to have all of them ready to go.  All except one tiny thing.


The birth certificate.



The birth certificate that I never actually requested... 5 years ago.

Insert gasp here.

Now, I'll admit that it's not hard to return a form.  As a matter of fact, I thought I returned the form waaaaay back when Katie was a tiny baby. 

I realized about 3... years... later that I had not.  When I found the envelope (neatly stamped and addressed) in a planner I rarely (really rarely) use.

And when she was 3 or even 4, I didn't actually need her birth certificate so it wasn't a big deal.  I thought I could get around to it when I had a chance (probably at the same time I requested Jake's since I couldn't tell you if I sent the form in for him either).  And now?  Well NOW I need that birth certificate.  By early March.  So I can bring it to registration.

So I don't have to babble some incoherent explanation about how I didn't send it in when she was born even though I thought I had and when I found out I hadn't, I just didn't think I would need it so soon so I didn't send it in then either and now I sent the form but I have to wait for it to arrive because expediting the delivery and the process would have cost an arm and a leg... as I open a paper bag to breath into.  The kind of explanation I give, when inside my head I'm saying "Shut up already!"

So, I'm going home tonight to check the one place I've managed to successfully store the kids' social security cards and hope that maybe I'll find one certificate for Katie and one certificate for Jake in that same envelope and I'll be able to save the $45 per kid that it would cost to replace them.  You know, $26 for the birth certificate, certified of course, and $19 for the extra copy of the same certified birth certificate that I will keep as a backup. 

Because it's got to be some kind of Murphy's law that if you only order one of something important, you'll lose it...  or someone will cut it up with child scissors. 

BUT if you order two, you're golden.  No one will want anything to do with whatever you've got, as long as there is more than one.  Aaaaaaand as long as it's not candy.  Or anything colorful.  Or dangerous. 

Or any combination of the above.