Night Before the Big Exam

We leave for Ethiopia in six days, and the panic is setting in. I have the feeling I'd have in college the night before a big exam—I would have been studying for weeks, but late at night, just before closing the books and turning in, I'd think about all the ways I could have studied but hadn't.

On the CHSFS forum, there's an interesting discussion going on about tantrums and how to deal with them lovingly in ways that promote attachment. The parents contributing to the discussion have such wonderful ideas, many of which come from books I've never even heard of. Now I feel like I should have read these already so I'd be prepared to deal with Sid's grief reactions when he comes home. It seems so important to handle everything in just the right way, and I'm afraid I don't know enough to make the best decisions in the moment.

Of course, my night-before-the-exam panics were usually unwarranted, and for the most part I knew more than I gave myself credit for. I'd take the test and do reasonably well, pulling the answers out from somewhere in the frenzied folds of my mind. Let's just hope this works out similarly, and that when Sid is here I'll have the tools and intuition to know what to do when problems arise. As long as it doesn't turn out like that calculus exam—the one I took one look at and, realizing it seemed to be written in a language I'd never seen, handed in blank—I guess we'll be OK.