Viewpoint

Friday night was a bit of a disaster. We all hopped in the car to go to Sugarfish and as we were almost there Jane yelled at one of us for something. I lost it and yelled something at her to further escalate the issue. I should have known better. I’m allegedly the adult.

We turned around and went home because I spent eight long years working in diners, bars and steak houses and I’ll be damned if I’m ever going to be the person who goes to a restaurant to fight. Those are the worst tippers and the most horrible patrons. If you’re having a bad day stay home until you can pretend to be happy.

We had dinner, Jane was sullen and Alexander was trying to cheer her up. When we’d finished she looked at me and asked if I’d take her to Hugo’s for hot cocoa. Not only did we go but we had a lovely time. She was chatty and happy and back to being the kid I’ve raised for 14 years. Things were normal again.

Until Saturday morning. There was door slamming and yelling at 8.30 in the morning. Again, this is my sweet and even tempered child. I don’t have experience with mood swings, tantrums or doors slamming. We didn’t even have a terrible twos. Nothing. We just had Friday night and Saturday morning. Mercifully at about 9am an email came through with a link to a video. It was this.

Ever since traveling with the folks from Project Aether I’ve been looking at single sex schools differently and Archer is a great match for my kid. I love everything about that school and hoped that it would be her first choice. It wasn’t and I’m pretty sure she’ll be going somewhere else but I’m wise enough to know that until we put the envelope in the mail things can change.

Jane was incredibly relieved because Archer was higher on her list than Notre Dame but not as high up as Viewpoint or Oakwood. Shortly after 9 she’d showered and we looked outside and saw two magical objects parked on the street. Mail Delivery Trucks.

Jane and I did the same thing as many mothers and daughters around Los Angeles on Saturday morning. We hovered on steps at the front door and sort of stared longingly at the trucks. I sort of nudged Jane and said, “Go ask the mail carrier if you can have your mail first.” And she declined. Too shy.

So I sort of wandered to the mail box and my mail carrier came to talk to me. He has a 15 year old daughter and wondered if we were waiting for a package, he didn’t want to disappoint Jane but we had no packages. I explained to him that we were waiting for high school acceptance letters and he gave a finger wag and a, “Why didn’t you say so?” talk. He explained that he was training a new carrier and he was slow but getting faster and was just around the corner. We talked about his daughter’s high school and then he just disappeared.

The next thing I know my mail carrier is running down the middle of the street holding envelopes up over his head and yelling, “They’re here, they’re here!” and the neighbors are looking and one of the envelopes is very very big while two of them are small. Jane runs to meet him and starts screaming Viewpoint after grabbing the large envelope from his happy hands. Our neighbors and their kids are yelling congratulations and all is right in the world.