ACT, FAFSA, CVS, wait, what?

A very random sample of the college brochures
 that clutter our new mail slots
in my (wait for it) STILL unfinished kitchen.

I have developed an eye twitch.  It's no mystery.  It is stress related.  Ed's college search is stressing me out.  I mean, it is stressing him out, too - but there is much at stake here.

He is applying for a scholarship - the kind that equates to a full ride.  If he gets that scholarship, he can only attend a pre-determined list of schools.  There are good options - some fall in the 'reach' category, and then there are other schools where he knows he can get in and is confident he will be happy to attend.  In the meantime, his college search also includes other non-full-ride schools in case he doesn't get the full ride deal.  Again, lots of good options.  To consider two different sets of schools, though, is time consuming.

He completed his full-ride scholarship application weeks ago.  On Friday, he got called to the office at school.  He was one of 3 seniors selected to lead a group of kids at a leadership conference.  He attended the conference last year as a junior, and now was being asked to participate as a leader.  Great news!

Once his full-ride scholarship application was submitted he couldn't edit it, so he needed to email the scholarship committee and let them know about this leadership role at the high school so that they could update his application.  He did this on Monday after school.

While Ed was in the study drafting the email, the triplets' dad walked in to collect his 4 kids.  My phone was in the study.  I was in the kitchen positioned at the 'revolving door' of moms entering the house to pick up babies/kids.  'He napped good.'  'She loved eating her peaches today.'  I didn't see the text message from triplet dad that said, 'Be there i
n 5 minutes.'

As an aside, I haven't understood the '5 minute' warning text message from the triplets dad all school year.  Does he want the kids waiting at the door dressed in coats with toy clean up complete before he walks in to get them?  That isn't always possible.  On the days when I was racing to get to Mini's tennis matches, I tried to have them ready so I could bolt.  In nice weather, there is less to clean up because they were usually playing on the swing-set.  Or, is it just a courtesy? 

On this day, I was chatting with moms.  His kids were still playing with toys.  My phone wasn't within reach.  Clean up still needed to happen.

While he waited for his kids to put the toys away in the family room, he started to get his daughter, Lila, in her coat.  Lila gets dropped off on a bus about 30 minutes before he arrives.  Lila is autistic and isn't potty trained yet.  The dad turned to me and asked where I kept her pull-ups.  She needed to be changed.  I hadn't caught a whiff of her from my spot in the kitchen.  It had to have just happened.  Still, it was awkward because I got the feeling that he felt like I should've been aware of it.  Groan.

That is the exact moment when Ed started calling me to the study.  He was panicked . . .