Pumpkinhead is currently attending a very expensive local Montessori. We got three e-mails from them earlier this week. The first informed us that the annual “supply fee” is going up by $120! Nope, that’s not a typo. So instead of owing $400 in January, we now owe $520. Then the second e-mail informed us that we have to pay an extra “supply fee” for the week between Christmas and New Years ($30). Okay… The third e-mail tells us that Pumpkinhead’s class is going to be in the school holiday concert on the 17th, that Pumpkinhead’s going to be a bumblebee, and that I’m responsible for purchasing him yellow fleece sweatpants and a sweatshirt (do you have any idea how freaking hard it is to find plain YELLOW sweats?!?). And of course I can’t go (if work wouldn’t let me leave even 5 minutes early for an exam, they sure as hell aren’t going to let me leave early for this 4 p.m. concert!), but I ask my mother and she promises to attend, video camera in hand. Okay, so my blood pressure is up at this point but I’m still handling it all.

Then I drop Pumpkinhead off this morning. I’m walking in the door and I see a sign on the front door that says, “Tickets for Holiday Show – $10). They have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!! Not only do I have to pay $520 a year for “supplies”, plus $75/mo. extra in the summer, plus $30 extra the week after Christmas, but now they want me to take time away from exams to hunt down an impossible-to-find sweatsuit AND pay for the privilege of seeing my little bumblebee sing for two minutes?!?! No freaking way!

So my question, to get to the point, is do you think it would be wrong of me to put him in the backup daycare near my work that day and just not let him participate in the show? He might be bummed, but he is four and quite frankly the cost/benefit analysis is really coming out against him. They’re done at 12 that day anyway so I’d be scrambling for childcare. Should I tell his teacher he won’t be there or why or would you just call in and say he’s sick?