YAAAAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

This is the email Kate got from her teacher a while ago.  


"YOU ROCK!!!! You got an 80 on the final. Way to go Kate! You brought yourself out of the bottom all by yourself! I'm so proud of you. Enjoy your new job and stay in touch. "


Folks, let's be honest, we were just going to be happy with a D. And the kind teacher did not have to go ahead and email her regarding the grade.  Kate was just nervously waiting for the grades to be issued either tonight or tomorrow by the official AU office.


She called me crying so hard and saying in the tone that makes my heart drop through my toes, "Mom?" with voice cracking.  I've heard it in four different voices over the years.  Less and less with the married daughters, but it can still happen.  I think the last time I heard it from LB was when she called me to say she was pregnant with Ada.  I heard the crying voice say, "Mom?" and I thought she'd had a wreck or something(since that was what I thought was her big danger, living in Atlanta) but I knew she was okay because she was calling me.  It was to tell me she was pregnant - to which I responded, "Well....Laura Beth....sweetie....?....I mean......"  


But back to Kate ( and it didn't take Laura Beth long to be excited about being pregnant, of course.)


Kate was so ecstatic and relieved and she was saying through the tears, "I made a B".  Well, there was crying and it didn't sound like an F, but I wasn't thinking B so I was trying to hear D, and I kept asking, "A B?" and she'd repeat it and so would I - finally I asked, "A B as in boy?" and she said yes - and then I kept saying, "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" over and over.  


See how uninteresting our lives would be if we were all academic geniuses in this family?  How could we do without all this drama?


So yay and yay and yay and thank you Lord soooooo much and thank you Kate for hunkering down the last 4 weeks and tuning out all the stuff you naturally take to - and for doing what you had to do - now Charlie and I can graduate from Auburn again - I'm sorry - that would be Kate graduating, wouldn't it?  Well - it feels like we're leaving something behind.  Oh yeah - that funnel that we pour our dollars into which land in Auburn, AL.  


We're going to Auburn tomorrow and we're taking Kate out to dinner....Hallalujah! and we won't be trying to make lemonade out of lemons - you know....when life hands you lemons?  


And all of this knowing that life is a breath and all we have is today - but still - we're all incredibly relieved.