I am SO proud of my daughter!

She is at her dad's this weekend, and was supposed to call me at 9am when her MIT decision was posted online. The phone rang at 8:50, and I thought maybe she was calling me before she logged on to check. But when I answered the phone, she was crying. Oh no, I thought, she's already checked and was rejected and is now inconsolable. I didn't know what to say. But then her shaky voice managed to get out, "Mom, I got in!" Then we were both crying!

She has wanted this so badly, and worked so hard for it. This is the kid that has a 4.32 GPA (because of all the AP classes she has taken), got a perfect 800 on the Math portion of her SAT (and a not too shabby 730 on the verbal portion), taught herself the second year of Calculus because they didn't have enough kids to take the class at school, tutors other students, volunteers at the local hospital. She basically works from the time she gets home from school until 10 or 11pm every night to get all her school work done. Then she spends most of the weekends doing more work. She is the most motivated, hardworking and driven student I have ever seen. And she SOOOO deserves this!

It doesn't matter now what any other school says. She had declared long ago that if MIT accepted her, that was it. So, if Harvard or Stanford want her now, it will be too bad. She is going where she belongs!

Now, I get to join her in Boston in 3 weeks for the preview weekend. I've only been once before (for a quick 2 day campus tour trip in June, when the above photo was taken). I'm looking forward to that. The whole thing makes me realize that first and foremost, I'll always be a mom, because what really matters to me above everything else is my kids and their happiness. It just feels so good for someone else to look at my precious daughter and say, yeah, we see it too. She IS awesome! :)

Congratulation Miss E! I am so proud of you (and I'm going to miss you so much too!).

(P.S. I think it is obvious what I'm thankful for today......)