Hope is the thing with feathers....

Am I the only mother who doesn't look forward to summer break? It's okay if I am, I'm just wondering. Mikayla and Josh have taken fighting and made it into an art-form, albeit a ruthless one. I put Kayla into a jazz dance class that my friend teaches, hoping that she'll let out some of her angst there and come home tired and less mouthy. I hope that she hasn't inherited my dancing skills. I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode where Elaine's dancing is likened to a full-body dry heave...
I've been looking at short sale houses in Daybreak. Short sales are a pain. A woman at the "glass house" information building, trying to cheer me up, said that she knows some people who were able to get the short sale they wanted after 45 days. What?! Then she looked down and said that her own short sale took 6 months. Ooookay. So, I have signed some papers and even some addendums for a house I love in Daybreak, but I'm wary. It'll be real when I have the key to the house in my hand. The house I love is a two story and has a mostly finished basement. I can tell that the people love the house, which makes it sad and good at the same time. The cabinets are dark, which I love, it has a fireplace surrounded by slate tiles (I love slate!), it has nice wood blinds, and two closets in the master-bedroom (I need more clothes!) As I walked through it with my realtor, Annie, I could see myself and my troop happy there.
Mikayla has made a list of all the pros and cons for going to Daybreak Elementary and for going to Silvercrest. She is very practical and her list-making brings up images of women I love doing the same. I'll be taking the kids to three different schools regardless: Josh and Cole are going to Riverton Elementary (Josh is in Alps and Cole wants to be in the same school and track), Kayla will go to Silvercrest or Daybreak, and Topher will go to preschool (if I can find one that will take him this late and won't require me to donate plasma every month for the tuition.) Is it weird to anyone else that pre-schools can cost as much as a car payment? He's going to be the youngest in his class because his birthday is in August, otherwise I would allow him to wallow in ignorance for another year. Why not just teach him at home? Because I REALLY don't want to. I can teach other people's kids and send them home, but where do I send Topher when the teaching's done? Hmmmm?
Speaking of school, my last day of class is coming up and I have a research paper on the Kantian definition of the sublime and how it relates to love in Shakespeare's "Othello." Help me, Lord. I really need to blow this out of the water and impress my seemingly unimpressable professor. Bless him, he scares the snot out of me. He told a classroom full of college seniors (and me) that most people fail research papers miserably and that he wrote a book on how to write them. Great. Oh, and did I mention that a little test called the GRE is looming in the not too distant future? Lord help me, indeed.