Silver Lining

Last week my daughter did something she'd never done before.

Totally out of the blue she started crying that she didn't want to go to school.

In the past, she cried if she had to miss school, even if she was sick.

"What's going on, kiddo?" I asked her. "You've never felt this way about school before."

"That's because I loved my old school. The kids don't behave here. I'm so sick of it!"

She's breaking my freaking heart. I couldn't get any more information out of her, but I ended up calming her down by telling her that there is barely a month of school left and then she'll never have to go back there again.

I was actually starting to feel guilty about making the kids move schools. They'll have to start all over again and we might not even be living here much longer. Plus, their current headmaster keeps sending me letters expressing her distress at our leaving. Even though every time I see her in person she has no idea who I am.

So, the girl may be breaking my heart but at least she's helped me feel better about our decision.

There is exactly one month left of school. I've never been so excited for summer.

You don't know how glam I am.

We are spiraling out of control in our quest to be the most white trash glam family on our block (or in the cul-de-sac). We just bought an above-ground pool. So fancy!

When we moved here we were pretty intent on buying a house with a pool. When that fell apart, we bought a house with a yard big enough for a pool. And then we found out that we'd have to spend about 45 grand to put in the pool we wanted.

So now we have an above-ground pool. And we're six grand poorer. But we're stimulating the economy. Go Tuna Family!

You Just Never Know

Man, there's nothing like hearing the words, "I have good news and bad news..."

Every military spouse I know can identify with those phone calls. I can't tell you how many times my husband has called just to give me a "heads up" on some possibly life changing news.

This time I was hanging out at home waiting for our new television to be delivered. Just as the guy was pulling into the driveway my husband dropped the bomb.

"Is my T.V. there yet?" he asked me.

"The guy just pulled in," I replied.

"Oh, okay. I'll call you back then. I have news."

Why does he say that when he doesn't have time to give me details?

"Good or bad?" I asked. "Tell me quick."

So, the news isn't really a big deal. It's just a possible career opportunity that would require us to move again relatively soon. He was really calling to ask me if I thought he should pursue it.

I don't know why he bothers to ask me anymore. I always tell him to pursue everything.

It's a good reminder. Just as I start to get comfortable and forget that I'm even a military wife, I'm reminded of the tentative nature of this life.

You just never know.

A Slippery Slope

I have a love/hate relationship with Drew Barrymore.

Well, it's not so much a relationship, really. It's more that I think it is great that someone so interesting looking can be considered beautiful by so many. But I think the way she talks needs to be outlawed.

Why is she so weird?

We were watching her on Lettermen the other night when I voiced my "weird" opinion of her. To which my husband quickly replied, "She's hot."

Really? Really?

Okay, if you like people who talk out of the sides of their mouths, I guess she's okay. But she has seriously sparked my interest in Grey Gardens.

Grey Gardens is one of the many popular gay culture things that I had no clue about. I heard it mentioned a thousand times, but never asked what it was about, assuming that I should already know.

Now, I'm fascinated by the story. And that of the Collyer brothers in Harlem.

Recently my parents demolished the life long home of my father's two deceased spinster aunts (one of whom always spoke with a British accent for no apparent reason) because it was too dangerous to even try to clean it out.

Since I was little I had heard stories about how the sisters had money stashed away in every nook and cranny because they didn't trusts the banks. They used to babysit me when I was very little and I remember their house seeming like a magical collection of player pianos and antique toys.

In the end, after the last sister died last year, my brother braved the decades of trash and decay to case the place for dead bodies and easily accessible cash. When he found nothing, they razed the house and sold the land to a developer.

How do you let things go so far?

You see, I'm asking, because I can understand it all too well.

I'm a little afraid to watch Grey Gardens because I'm afraid I'll see myself too clearly in the Beale women. I'd like to watch the documentary before the HBO movie, but I'm reticent.

I can easily see letting myself get to that point someday. When my husband is gone, and my children are gone...

There is such a small degree of separation between eccentricity and tragedy.

Easter Ham

And I keep my streak alive of always being sick on major holidays.

What's up with that?

Actually, the kids have been really sick since last Tuesday or Wednesday. We spent Thursday and Friday night doing the fever dance...you know...that dance of trying to keep a kids' fever low enough so you don't have to take him to the ER, but being ready to head to the ER if you need to.

I've never taken either of the kids to the ER and I don't want to start now.

The problem with my son is that he's so good natured, even when he's sick, that it is hard to tell when he's really feeling bad.

I, on the other hand, let everyone know when I am sick.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to parent when your voice is shot and your throat is on fire?

I did manage to put together an Easter dinner, mostly by just heating up store-bought sides. We had a Honeybaked ham that I picked up last week. It ended up being really good.

But I have to admit, I am so annoyed that after nine years we still can't get through a meal (at least a meal that isn't chicken nuggets, plain hamburger, buttered pasta, pancakes or eggs) without my daughter crying.

As much as I say that it's just too bad if she won't try the perfectly normal (and often bland) food I've provided for her, I still end up avoiding making meals I know she'll cry over. I've made her peanut butter sandwiches too many times before.

This is my major parental failure.

All in all, it was a nice Easter, despite the fevers, hacking and snot. I'll never understand why, but Easter is my daughter's favorite holiday.

Maybe next year she'll try a bite of ham. Before I decide to trade her in.

Only Us

Only I would get a really bad sunburn while wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt.

My face looks like tomato. It feels really stupid having a sunburn when it is 60 degrees in April.

Only my daughter would yell out, "Mommy! Look at this giant cock!" in the middle of a waiting room.

She had taken a picture of a really big rooster on her field trip.

I'm so glad the women in my family have such a flair for the dramatic.

Caught Between Two Worlds

Remember what I said about being happy with my son's baseball coach. Yup. I take that back.

The guy's an ass.

No adult should ever tell a group of kids to shut up.

I know my disdain for his behavior is mainly a cultural thing. And I mean that in both an ethnic and a...well...honestly, a socio-economic thing.

I grew up in a working class town with working class people. I grew up around parents who swore and yelled at their kids in public. I grew up where everyone smoked at Little League games and belched in front of ladies. I grew up around racism and homophobia.

So I should feel comfortable in that element. But I don't. I chose to go to a private school and I chose to get out of that town. Even my husband struggled though college and became and officer in the military to get away from all that.

We're trying to give our kids a better life. And yet, here I am, throwing my kid right back in the fray, just because I think he should play baseball.

It's funny, because here I am calling the private school people here snooty. But then I'm turning right around and calling the neighborhood people low class.

But I've got to be honest. I'll choose snooty people who spoil their kids over low class people who demean their kids. Mostly because they're demeaning my kid too, and he doesn't deserve that. I can keep my kids from being spoiled, but I can't keep them from being humiliated.

Now, I should point out something here though. Something I find quite interesting.

That coach today yelled at and embarrassed every single kid on that team. Except my son.

Why? Not because he's a great player (believe me). I think it's because my husband is in his uniform, with his rank all right there on his shoulders, when he takes my son to baseball practice. And the coach repeatedly calls him "sir" even though my husband has asked him not to.

I'm not sure what to think of that.

I have to be honest. I really want my son to quit baseball. And I have never ever ever quit anything in my life. So that's saying a lot.

By the way, I'm venting here because anything I say to my husband (who wasn't at the game today as he had to take my daughter to soccer) he is going to chalk up to me being an overprotective mom. And a former coach who doesn't think anyone can do as good a job as me.

But I'm going to start Googling youth lacrosse and researching our new school's developmental sports program. I can't take this for another season.

Oh, and also. I've already thanked my husband for providing us with this lifestyle I was starting to take for granted.

Dark Places

Okay, my friends, I've got to admit something here.

I'm kind of a wreck.

It turns out that our friend who died this past weekend apparently killed himself.

After we had seen on Facebook that he had died, I tried to find out some information about what happened. When so many people you know are pilots, and you hear that someone has died, you always assume that there was an incident.

But we knew that our friend just had his "fini flight" (a celebration of someone's last flight in his/her military aircraft). So my husband was thinking he may have been in Iraq or something.

But no. It turns out that he had just started flying civilian jets. He was doing his dream job.

I couldn't find an obituary or news story anywhere. But we have friends who had been in contact with his wife and were flying down for the funeral. We had funeral home information. Still, no one seemed to know what had happened to him.

"Maybe you should check out his Facebook page," I suggested to my husband. "Of course, if something happened to you, I certainly wouldn't be jumping on your Facebook account first thing, but you never know."

And his wife had posted on his Facebook profile.

She said he had died at home..."self induced"...and posted her home number so people could call and "help" her daughter "who doesn't know yet".

I don't know. It seemed weird to me. What the hell does "self induced" really mean? Yes, it sounds like he had killed himself, but that was just so out of sync with the guy we knew that I had to think I was mistaken.

On Tuesday, his Facebook wall was flooded with, well, mostly words of support for his wife and daughter and words of respect and remembrance for our friend. He was a very well-liked guy. Always was. His daughter is the same age as ours. I don't know his wife at all.

But it certainly didn't seem like a prudent time to start asking questions.

Then early Wednesday morning his wife posted an explanation. She said he had killed himself with rope and used his body to block the door from her. She said he had sent time-delayed text messages. And that his letter to her was lost. There was something about a bird and a shark and her having rescued someone from the train tracks earlier that week.

There has been zero activity there since.

Yes, if my husband were dead, no matter how he had died, I doubt I'd be my most coherent. But I really don't think I'd be on Facebook posting our home number and giving out details. But, we all grieve differently so I won't judge.

Still.

It all seems wrong and strange to me.

And I can't get it out of my mind.

Sometimes I am a little obsessive. If something bothers me, I can't let it go. It's not like we were going to miss this person on a daily basis. It was the circumstances that had me rattled.

I knew he had been posting on Facebook regularly in the last few weeks. And it was all just totally normal life stuff. I went scrolling back over the last year on his wall, just looking for...something.

How can a guy who had just been happily speaking at his daughter's career day turn around and inflict that kind of horror on his family the next? I guess he could have been sick or clinically depressed, but it would have been hard for him to fly for the military for all those years and hide it that well.

I guess PTSD is a possibility. But from what we knew of his career, he had never seen combat.

I just don't know.

Even in my very darkest hours when I know without a doubt that my family would have been better off with someone else as their wife and mother, I love them too much to abandon them and fuck up their lives forever. I know he loved his daughter.

No matter what, it puts things in perspective for sure. Tragedy tends to do that.

I mean, seriously. The worst problems I have are that my house is a mess and I need to lose weight. I can't imagine anything being so bad that there wasn't someone I could talk to about it. I can't imagine anything so bad that I would risk having my daughter discover my hanging body.

It makes me want to call all of my friends and say, "Hey! If you ever want to kill yourself, don't. Call me first and tell me that you've reached that place. Okay?"

Tonight, my daughter is playing a bunch of solos in a violin recital celebrating her graduation to the next violin level. Normally, I'd be stressing out about it. But today I just feel thankful that I have these happy children and a solid marriage to a good man.

I feel like celebrating life. I have to stop thinking about suicide and death before it eats away at me.

Positively Hoops-i-fied Fabulosity

What do you do when you're up late contemplating life, death, suicide, hopelessness and happiness? Why, you escape it all and make your own Hoops & Yoyo video.

This is the most brilliant thing I have ever created.

Hoops & Yoyo always make me feel better.

In the morning I can go back to being...introspective and weary.

Lost Friend

I'm sick of calling my husband to tell him that his friends have died.

Today I found out from a Facebook status update that one of his old ROTC friends has just died. I hadn't talked to him in years but my husband had recently caught up with him via Facebook.

The instant availability of information on the Internet is both wonderful and horrible. It allows old friends to reconnect but it reduces life changing news to a few lines of code.

I used to have nightmares about hearing bad news on CNN. Now I have nightmares about finding out I've lost my husband from my Yahoo home page.

We've lost way too many Air Force friends this past year. I still don't know the details this time around but no matter how his wife and daughter lost him, it is incredibly sad.

Whenever his name came up over the last fourteen years, we always said, "He was such a good guy." Today I'm thinking of his wife and daughter.

A Big Boom

Living on military bases for the better part of the last thirteen years has made us somewhat blasé to loud noises and booms. But we heard something Sunday night that made both of us check on the kids and the neighborhood.

We shrugged it off when we didn't see anything.

But how interesting is this? The boom we heard was falling debris from a Russian rocket.

It's like something out of a movie. It's like the opening scene when something strange but seemingly innocent falls out of the sky. Then later the human race is enslaved by aliens.

And that's what it's like to live in my head.

Summer Loving

When my daughter and I were running out of the house to get to her rehearsal last night, our neighbor (who makes us look bad with all of her landscaping) looked up from her weeding to exclaim, "Wow! You guys never stop running, do you?"

She's right. On school days we're up and practicing violin by six. Then I drive the kids to school and spend my days doing housewifely stuff. By two I'm headed to pick them up again only to rush them around to speech therapy, soccer, baseball, swimming and violin. Then of course there is the hour of homework and the hour of homeschooling-type stuff we do every evening.

My kids go to bed by 7:30 so we have only four hours to fit all that after-school stuff into.

No wonder the neighbors have noticed our constant running.

I swore I would never overschedule my kids. But here we are. Granted, the sports we do are pretty much in separate seasons, but there is some overlap and the kids' sports sometimes conflict.

But after a weekend like this last one (with a soccer tournament, swim clinic, symphony and violin rehearsal), I feel like we just need to stop for a bit.

I just want to sit on the couch and watch a movie with my kids. Except it seems like there is no end in sight.

No wonder my son insists that he doesn't want to go to any camps or take any classes this summer. He says he wants to stay home "and relax!"

I know they'll be bored by mid-July. (And I'll be going stir crazy!)

But they have to go to a violin institute and a week of day camp at their new school in June. And they want to take surf lessons. Plus we have a big vacation planned in August.

But I have promised them to spend more days at the beach. And more days relaxing. And more days having fun.

For the first Spring ever, I'm looking forward to the Summer.

Happy

The boy had his first real baseball practice tonight and loved it. His coach is great (and I'm picky!) and my son is stoked.

The girl is graduating from Book 2 of her violin training next week. We have worked so hard for this. She's playing five songs solo in a recital to celebrate. And her violin teacher is awesome and one of my favorite people.

I've got a signed contract for their new school and the deposit is paid.

Spring is on its way and my husband has been preparing our lawn.

All of these things make me very, very happy.

In celebration of my happy, here are some happy photos.

Hawaii!

The girl in her school talent show.

The boy accepting applause at the school talent show.


The kids and my husband before the Final Mile race at the oceanfront.

The kids on the beach after completing their mile race.

Serious Fun

Almost twenty years into our relationship and I can still learn new things about my husband.

He took the day off work yesterday to take care of some errands. He dropped his car off at the shop and we spent the day together taking care of mundane tasks. I think it says something about us that we can still just enjoy going to Home Depot together or sitting in carpool line.

When we are alone for any stretch of time, I like to torture him by quizzing him about our past and his feelings. He always teases me about dumping him in high school and wearing plaid pants back when I was a skinny little shit.

But yesterday, while teasing him about our pathetic first date I asked him, "So, when you scored your first date with me, were you really excited? Like, woo hoo?"

He glanced at me and asked, "Do you want an honest answer or should I tell you what you want to hear?" He asks me that a lot.

Of course I chose honesty.

"I don't remember," he told me. "But I do remember having a lot of fun with you."

In fact, he went on to tell me that he remembers always having fun with me, more than anyone else.

That amazes me, because if we have ever had any real problem in our marriage it was that we didn't have enough fun together. So much so, that in the last two or three years we have made a serious commitment to have more fun together.

Yes, I just said a serious commitment to have more fun.

He also went on to say that I was always just easy to be with.

"Ha!" I yelled at him. "And you claim that I'm high maintenance."

"No, I don't." he shook his head.

"Oh, my god!" I screeched in that way that only offended females can. "You so do!"

"Well, you're not," he admitted. "You're easy to be with."

I haven't thought of myself as fun or easy to be with in a long time. I'm so glad my husband needed to take a day to get his car fixed and mow the lawn.

Housekeeping Note

Update: If you don't see your link over there ----> don't despaire. I'm typing all of my live links into my template one at a time. And the way I type, that means I only do about five a day.

Oh, and if you have a blog that hasn't been updated in over two months, but you start blogging again, please let me know. Thanks!

I am so over blogrolling. And I used to be a paying customer and a huge fan. But their new version is a huge flop and I'm moving on.

So, please excuse the mess while I update all of my links and some other nagging problems.

Ginger Crush in Found Photos

I was just searching for something totally random online when I stumbled across pictures and videos of my own kids.

What the?

There is this boy in our violin group who has come to personify everything bad and chaotic to my children. Apparently his mother is a rather popular and prolific blogger. (Suddenly I am being really careful not to string together the wrong keywords and draw her here.)

She has posted hundreds of violin pictures and videos on flickr.

So, even though we are the lazy, uncaring parents who hardly ever take pictures or video I now have a bunch of them pilfered from flickr.

At our violin workshop last weekend, I noticed that this personification of juvenile evil is always sure to stand next to my daughter. He doesn't pay attention to anything but he always knows when she enters a room. And these new pictures I have discovered of said evil boy always include my daughter.

I think someone has an evil crush.

When I commented as such my son turned to my daughter in absolute desperation. "Please don't marry him!" he implored. "I don't want him to be a part of my life forever!"

Cracked. My. Ass. Up.

These Are Days

The longer I live the more convinced I become that aliens dropped my daughter into our family. She is clearly not from us.

There are days...

Sometimes I wonder why we ever decided to have kids at all. If only it were possible to get to that second easy kid without having to go through the daily drama and agony of dealing with a first-born. I think lots of parents would take that option.

I'm off to eat some doughnuts before I eat my young. Happy Spring.

Speaking of School

Yeah. Um, speaking of school (ahem)...

This week is the beginning of the final trimester for the kids at school. My daughter's teacher called to let me know that they are moving my daughter up into an enrichment level math class.

Um, okay. Seems a little late, but whatever.

I've finally adopted a "whatever" attitude just in time for my daughter to get her first all-A report card ever. I've got to work up more enthusiasm.

The final trimester is also the trimester when my daughter starts her "Strings Exploration". She will be taught basic violin at school and play a concert for the parents in May. This should be interesting.

My son had a very good report card too. What makes me the happiest for him is that he is noted for having outstanding manners and class participation.

He is also very happy because he will have an art piece featured in a show at school this month. Apparently, it's a big deal. It's funny because he is so mathematical that I forget he is artistic too. He won an award at a city-wide art show last year. We're going to the opening this afternoon.

He's so funny because he immediately pointed out to me that his best buddy was not going to be in the show. His best friend is the smartest child I have ever met in real life. His IQ must be through the roof, but he is also a very polite, social, and an all-around good kid. They do math challenges together, but he is ahead of my son in reading. My son feels a little competitive with him, but in a good way. It's nice for him to have a friend who challenges him.

And it's nice for my son to see that he has his own special talents too. And apparently they are in art and writing. According to his report card he is excelling in their first grade writers' workshop. My husband sighed at that. "Great," he said. "That's all I need. Another writer in the family."

He should count his blessings, no matter how wordy they may be.

Five Years

Five years ago today I started this little blog.

In 2004 my daughter was four-years-old and in preschool. She had just started soccer and she did ballet. Now she's getting ready to go to fifth grade in a new school. She's playing advanced soccer and auditioning for an orchestra.

In 2004 my son was two-years-old. He wasn't even potty trained yet. Back then I said, "He is sweet and affectionate. He is also very strong-willed and independent. He's a lot like me, come to think of it." And boy, was I right. He's still all those things but now he reads and writes and does fourth grade math.

In 2004 my husband was at "Top Gun". He was still a captain. Gosh, we were young! Now he's up for a promotion and working at a completely different job at a completely different place. He's a lot more gray and has a lot less hair. And our marriage is better than ever.

In 2004 I was thirty-years-old. That's so young! I was a stay-at-home mom then too but my life was completely different. (My hair is still full and not gray.)

When I think of how much I have grown and changed since then, I am astounded. I am still amazed that people come by and read anything I have to say here on the web.

Every year on my blog-o-versary I thank the three guys who really got me going in this whole blogging world. But this year, all three of them have all closed up shop, at least for the time being.

To be honest, I had been planning for months to join them. I had completely committed to ending my blog today. I went through a whole process of coming to accept the end of Tuna Girl and moving on. Until I talked to my husband about it last night.

As the person who knows me best in the world, he was worried that when he deploys next, I would really miss it. I would miss the connections and the outlet.

I thought and thought about it. And I was tempted to go ahead and go on a hiatus and leave things more open-ended. But I had always promised myself that when I ended it, I'd end it completely.

So, instead I have decided to try and write more freely. Even if no one ever comes by to read what I have to say, it is still good for me to have a place to get everything out.

So once again, for my fifth year in a row on St. Patrick's Day I want to thank Nicky, Mark and Matthew, my friends and family, for getting me started in this crazy blog world and continuing to be so special to me five years in.

Thick Envelopes

They got in!

My kids got into our first choice school. Both of them.

Woo fucking hoo!

I am seriously having a hard time taking it all in. I can't remember ever being this happy or proud.

On Saturday, my husband and I were on different flights home from Hawaii. So when I got home, I picked up our car and had about an hour to kill before his flight came in. I drove right home to check our mailbox.

As I was pulling out mounds of mail, I spotted big envelopes from all three of the schools we applied to. But there were thin ones too. I had to take two trips to bring all the mail in and my heart was pumping.

I sat down on my sofa, got comfortable and started going through the envelopes one by one.

Here's a little background information (and then I swear I will never ever talk about schools again.)

When we were moving here, School A was our first choice. It is an academy whose reputation stretched all the way to the Southwest. When my son and I first visited it, I called my husband and said, "This is where I want them to go to school. This is where I wish I went to school." Not only were the facilities unbelievable, but I really liked the academic atmosphere. They were very well-behaved kids very busy learning. Their commitment to the arts is unparalleled. They have the best average SAT scores at 1260 and the most impressive college acceptances. (They are also the most expensive school in this region.) They seemed like the best fit for our family. And we ended up buying a house that is only two minutes away from School A's campus.

School B is the school we ended up going to. The very first day we visited, I just felt...eh. They are the free-spirited school. They are the beach school. They are the sports school. They are the school who just did-away with their lower school computer lab. They are the school without the violin program or any lower school drama program. I was optimistic about the kids going there when it was the only school they both got into, but my first impressions were right. As is well-documented on this blog, I wasn't impressed.

School C is Misty's alma mater. We applied there last April on her recommendation. It's a great school. It is a lot more like our old school than School B. But they were already full for the next year and wait-listed us. The only thing that I didn't like about that school is that the lower school is on a separate campus from the upper school. Both campuses are pretty convenient to home but one of the benefits of sending my kids to private school is always having them in the same place. Plus, they love going to school together.

School D was the one we didn't apply to last year. It seemed too small (it is REALLY small) and too far away. But when I realized that it was only a block away from our violin studio (and we were so unhappy at School B) I decided to check it out. It is a wonderful school. I love their math program and their math enrichment teacher. They have a really great mentoring program and a true family atmosphere. They have a school dog, for goodness sake!

Now, let's break it all down.

School A: We decided to apply there every single year until we moved just to see what would happen. Getting in there is nearly impossible. They never have openings between 2nd and 5th grade and they have 20 to 30 kids applying in each grade for those non-existent spots. They open up another class in 6th grade and we were hoping to get my daughter one of those spots in 2010-2011. This is where we want our kids to go to high school.

School B: We decided to give our current school a chance and attended a transition sales pitch. While this school is a sure thing from now to twelfth grade, the tour and presentation we had that day just cemented to us that we were making the right decision to leave.

School C: Just like last year, they told us right off the bat that with 22 kids per class, their first grade is over-full. But they asked us to please apply anyway, because you never know and they thought our family was a good match for their school. Plus. it was my daughter who really needed a new school the most anyway.

School D: Same situation. Honestly, I think they loved us, but with 22 kids in their first grade, they were beyond full. But the admissions director assured me that strange things sometimes happen over the summer and asked us to apply. And again, this school was a great fit for my daughter.

Now, the envelopes please.

The first one was from School D. My daughter was accepted! Oh. Thank. God. I was so relieved. No matter what else happened in the rest of those envelopes, I knew I'd have my daughter back to her real self. I stood up and danced a little.

Next, my son was wait-listed at School D. With assurances that we shouldn't give up hope. I really think they liked him a lot.

Next, was School A. The envelope was thick. My heart was pounding. And my daughter got in! She did what I thought was impossible. But there was another thick envelope from them somewhere.

And my son got in too! They both got into School A! What the hell are the odds? I have never been so happy or proud in my entire life.

I jumped up and down. I whooped and hollered and danced. I laughed like a nut.

But there were more envelopes.

My daughter also got into School C! She got into every school she applied to. These are not safety schools that you just walk into. These are schools with high standards. And she got into every single one.

But my son was wait-listed there too.

So our decision was easy. Or so one would think. The school I'd been dreaming about wants them. Both of them. I have to admit I spent one sleepless night wondering if we should send my son to School A and my daughter to School D. But we would really only be choosing School D because it was so small she'd feel safer there, and I don't want to limit her the way I limited myself. Besides, School D doesn't have a high school and we'd only be trying to get her into School A later anyhow.

My husband told me I was obsessive and nuts.

We told the kids on Monday. My daughter looked a little stricken when we told her she made it into all three schools but it was only because she was afraid of having to make the choice. But we told them that it was a choice we were responsible for. And we choose School A.

We took them out with Grandma last night to celebrate.

They are so proud of themselves. As they should be. They worked so hard to prepare for the entrance exams. They were so charming and polite in their interviews. They try so hard at everything they do.

They are also relieved and ecstatic that they are going to school together at least until they gradate from high school or we move. Whichever comes first. They are so sweet together and love each other so much. Seeing each other at school is always the highlight of their day.

I feel so much lighter than I've felt in...I don't know...years! I never felt like I got my feet under me after my husband's Iraq deployment. Now I can't stop laughing, dancing or even crying in joy.

They got in.

I am so proud.

And I promise. No more school talk. Until college.