LM did not make it into the performing arts school on his audition. (I was surprised since it is supposed to be based on enthusiasm more than anything. Weeding out the kids who don't really want to be there). So that was a big blow. I didn't really know what to expect so didn't think it was 100% in the bag. But still disappointed all the same.

That said, LM did okay in the lottery. He is waitlist #13 or so (they haven't listed it out yet but dh counted it out and it was early on). I am so relieved dh could follow at all. It's really hard with his lack of hearing. (Or hopefully no surprise when they post the list! I suppose maybe he could have misheard).

Since he didn't get in I don't know how fast they want enrollment intent. None of the schools seem to say, but I dug out LM's Kinder application and his current school gave them 2.5 weeks to enroll. So I expect it will be something along those lines.

In this case there are two middle school programs at the same school. The accepted list for the other school was already posted a couple of days ago and the list is largely the same kids that got accepted in this other program. Pretty much any 5th graders already at said school, plus siblings of any older students, just applied at both schools to cover their bases. I imagine they will probably want people to be deciding in the next few weeks. Both lists are pure crap in the meantime. The plus side is I know they will be able to weed through their lists quickly. Some of the other schools, lord knows. It was quite chaotic when BM started 6th grade. Kids not showing up on the first week of school and then lots of shuffling around as they went down the waitlists. For every spot that opens up it is just a domino effect through the rest of the schools. But at least the people deciding between these two schools will have to make their decisions. The school will know if someone tries to claim a spot in both programs. So I expect these two programs to sort out more quickly than some of the others. Also, the other program at this school has wider appeal, as evidenced by their much longer waitlist. That might bode well for LM.

This is probably why on the way out of the lottery our neighbor (with kids the same age) said her older child had been waitlist #13 and he got in no problem. Like they didn't even have to wait until school started to find out.

For now we are cautiously optimistic. There are some different dynamics this year, but I admit it sounds pretty promising.

In the meantime, definitely still in limbo...

{If LM does not get in, he will stay at his current K-8 school. I suppose next year we do this all over again for high school for BM. BUT... For whatever reason all the middle schools are charter schools and why it is so chaotic. For high school I think BM Can easily get into any high school he wants to. We are considering between the two public high schools in our district}.

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Our plan was to do one last big family vacation this fall with the kids. Our schedules will never mesh after that. This other school sometimes has the same fall break but we found out last week they have no fall break for 2016. Ugh! So between that and a promising spot on the waitlist... We are scrapping the October vacation.

There is only one other week in the year that works for all of us, and it's at the end of June. So we are scrambling to see if that is enough time to plan a trip to D.C. I am wary of the last minute nature of the trip. But this is really dh's baby and I will leave it up to him. We are just going to start with seeing if we can get a free timeshare stay this weekend. It's not that we wouldn't go if we couldn't get a free room, but if everything is already booked up we will be wary. We will just have to discuss it from there. If there is a room we will just go with it. Dh was going to come up with a plan of what he wants to do, how many days it will take, and where we want to stay. We were going to see his parents this weekend and we can inquire about timeshares when we see them. I suppose we probably won't be buying airfare before April.

Edited to Add: Feeling less in limbo the next day. I remember thinking 50 kids or so were on both lists (basically all the kids already in their 5th grade program or that have older siblings at the school) but that was probably an exaggeration. The list came out, dh heard correctly (yay) and I counted *50* kids accepted to both programs at the same school. Exactly 50. We only need 13 of those kids to pick the other program. Wow!