I've let the news of the school lottery set in for a few days. The initial shock of our terrible pick (see above) has turned into two emotions that seem to have stuck: disappointment and rejection.
1. Disappointment: I had managed to stay pretty optimistic (this rarely happens) through the lottery waiting game. This is what I get for trying to be optimistic. We had faith in the process and we were hopeful that we would at least get a somewhat decent waitlist number at our number one pick. Not so much.
2. Rejection: After about a day, I realized that this was the emotion that was sneaking in. Even though we had no control over the process (none!), it still hurts when someone tells you you didn't make the cut. Ouch.
Where do we go from here? We're working that out currently. There's a small chance we will make it into one of these schools eventually (think: late next school year) but that's questionable. And we could enter the second round of the lottery (they'll post schools that still have openings), but we're pretty sure that's out of the question. We don't want to expand our search too much, mostly because expanding our search means lengthening our commute. Not something I'm willing to deal with five days a week. So, our plan remains what it was (as a back up) from the beginning: Chase will stay put at his preschool for another year, two days a week. We'll remain on the waitlists and hope there's a ton of movement. If there's not (which we're not exactly holding our breath about), we'll reenter the lottery for the 4 year old class a year from now.
I continue to remind myself that "whatever happens is meant to be" and am working on letting go (a constant struggle for my control freak tendencies). We'll find the perfect school home for Chase (and eventually Robbe), I know that to be true.
Side note: have no fear, I'll keep you posted as our waitlist numbers change (and they will!). Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong and we'll have better luck than I currently think possible.
