My Money and My Kid Go To...

Last night, while sitting around doing our habitual Saturday night ritual of eating, watching tv, and reading on-line, Sparky and were just enjoying the first skit on Saturday Night Live when Little L burst our of her room screaming, "OH MY GOD, MOM!" My heart did a flip flop and my body reacted with a quick jerk to the left as my body was moving out of the seat to meet her in the hall to see what was wrong.

Tears were pouring down her face and her voice was shaking: "I got in! I got in!" I am thinking of a computer game that she might have found clues to solve or something, and was ready to scream at her for scaring us to death - but I was not prepared for what she said next.

"I've been accepted to SDSU!!!!" I am not sure how many emotions I felt all at once but I do remember being scared, happy, excited, sad, proud, worried, and shocked. We hugged, we ran to her room to look at the acceptance letter sitting in her email inbox. We talked about how we had come to the bridge I said not to worry about until we have to cross it.

And then I announced that I had to go to sleep. I just couldn't deal with all those emotions. I had to sleep to escape. MY BABY GIRL is leaving the nest. I told her to call her Sissy and they talked and talked and Sweet Pea cried and started giving her great advice on her step into the world.

I slept fairly well. I woke up with a sore neck and back from where I jerked around. Sparky was already up and we started talking madly. We will register for intent to attend today and begin the process of sending them lots o' money. We need to get her driving more so she can her license. We will start looking for things she will need in the dorm. We will blah, blah, blah... And then we sat on the edge of the tub and cried in each other's arms.

We are so very, very proud of her. (Stats for SDSU: 45% accepted, 5% from out of state applicants get accepted) We cried because we worry for her safety and happiness. We cry because we will miss her - no one makes us laugh daily like she does. She set a goal and she met it. She has wanted to go there since she was in the 8th grade.

I had a class to teach this morning and I took Little L with me to browse at the bookstore while I was teaching. She found lots of books on being a freshman - words of wisdom such as get a fake I.D. because your friends will want to go to bars (???) and she learned a new word: Sexiled - that is when you walk in on your college roommate having sex with someone and you are asked to leave for the night.

Needless to say, I am going to take her to a different section of the bookstore next time. We talked about those things and I felt pretty good that Sparky and I had done a decent job on preparing her for life. I asked her what else she learned. She said that two books gave differing opinions on how to say good-bye to your family when you go off to college. One book said not to rush, to just give the parents time to say good-bye. The other book said to treat it like a band aid and just say good-bye quickly.

I turned to her and asked her if she thought we needed a book to teach us how to say good-bye. We both agreed that we don't need that lesson. Because it's not good-bye. It's just Soaring Over California.

I love you, my Little L.
xoxoxoxo