I assume they look seriously at birthdates and cutoff dates and allow leeway for close to the mark kids?

Oh, so cool! When I go to Spain next week, my niece has arranged a day trip to the oldest working lighthouse in the World.

[link]

Do I have an awesome niece, or what?

Very common with boys, and in areas where sports requiring bigness are important (like the SEC.)

Both my kids are on the young end for their grades - in GA Casper's birthday was 3 days before the cutoff - so I have a lot of worry about age inflation in elementary school.

Fricking IRS. Last November, they tried to hit KCD with a $200k tax bill saying he owed for the full value of our house sale. Ummm, no. There was another minor issue they had, which was a true issue. So, being the nice person I am, I helped KCD craft a response telling them to stick it on the big issue and here is the money.

Last week he got a response from them that was basically, ok you are right on the big issue and you owe $$$ on the little issue. Except they pulled some wrong numbers from his original 1040, making the amount due 5x's more than it should be. Once again, I have crafted a response and have copies of his return showing the correct numbers. This one was plain incompetence on the side of the person who prepared it.

We got a foster kitty today! We were hoping for kittens (since with the changing jobs and training I'll be home a lot the next few weeks) but they didn't have any. So we got a pretty long-haired grey cat with green eyes whose name is Rucifee. Which may or may not be a reference to what the mice called the Lucifer cat in Cinderella. Unclear etymology.

We should have him a few weeks at least, and pictures will follow at some point. I was amazing (having never owned a cat) how incredibly much I have picked up here from the cat-having 'ffistas.

Ugh, Typo. Although I will say, when we had no insurance, a couple doctors *did* adjust fees based on what they would have been paid by most insurance. So it doesn't hurt to ask. And once you say "self-pay," a lot of times the doctor or lab or whatever will just show the different pay scale.

Both my kids are on the young end for their grades - in GA Casper's birthday was 3 days before the cutoff - so I have a lot of worry about age inflation in elementary school.

Ben is a February birthday, but Sara is Nov. 29, and started kindergarten at four. She's halfway through third grade, and she's consistently working at or above grade level, so I think it probably matters most what your particular kid is ready to handle. That said, she's a girl, and the big issue seems to be boys and sports, which I think is pretty gross. Education first, people. Sports second.

You don't have your own reusable bags?

You could get one of those trash cans that meant to be lined with plastic grocery bags, Jesse.

For the record, I have, and I do! But I always forget the bags when I'm shopping (I know I should just keep one in my purse, but I forget), and I only use one-ish a week in trash cans, since there's no where else for me to put my trash until trash day. Stupid crappy apartment building.

Although not nearly as stupid and crappy as the insurance system in this country, or IRS screwups.

That said, she's a girl, and the big issue seems to be boys and sports, which I think is pretty gross. Education first, people. Sports second.

I feel like I've heard it's about social maturity for boys, but is that just smokescreen?

That said, she's a girl, and the big issue seems to be boys and sports, which I think is pretty gross. Education first, people. Sports second.

I've read some sports arguments, but I've read WAY more academic arguments for boys (more mature, more able to sit for extended periods of time, more focused) and if the twins were close to the cutoff, I'd consider holding them out a year just to give them a chance to get over their sillies.

With both soccer and baseball we've noticed that even a 6 month difference is HUGE in terms of behavior.

I feel like I've heard it's about social maturity for boys, but is that just smokescreen?

That used to be what I heard, too, and certainly it was an issue with Jake, who has a September birthday (in a district where September 30 was the cutoff, iirc). He *was* young and immature, and wound up doing kindergarten over.

The 60 Minutes piece made it seem that a lot of it was about sports for boys -- I don't think one parent of a girl was even interviewed, although I missed some of it.