My Daughter's Been Abducted by Aliens!

I came home tonight...ten days after leaving the family...and it was nice reuniting with Hubby, the kids, and the furry kids.

However...an incident with my 13-year old daughter has me wondering if perhaps she wasn't abducted by aliens while I was gone, who've left an imposter in her wake.

Getting home from the airport, I was scanning quickly through the mail that had piled up in my absence...because God forbid that Hubby actually pay a bill or manage the checkbook while I'm gone.... Anyway. I digress.

So...in the stack of mail is my 7th-grader's invitation to take the ACT test in two months...based on some good scores she's received in assessment tests recently. It's not typical for 7th-grade students to take the ACT test, but this will give her some good practice.

Thinking she's probably never even HEARD of the ACT test (and with good reason - she's in middle school, after all), I figured I'd better ease her into this....

"Oh, lookie here," I begin, oh-so-casually, while holding the envelope containing her ACT paperwork.

"I've got you signed up to take the ACT test in December."

Daughter looks at me for a moment, speechless, and I brace myself, anticipating cries and wails of shock and horror. And who could blame her - it's a scary test, the ACT - and so I mentally get my "You can DO this!" speech all set to go.

"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" Daughter screams, fist-pumping the air and jumping up and down.

Well. This is so not the reaction I expected. Thinking she clearly misunderstood me, I reiterate, slowly, "The ACT test, honey...a college-prep test."

"I KNOW!!!" She screams. "I'm SOOOOOO excited!!!!!!"

Now it's my turn to be speechless.

She says, "ALL my friends were bragging last week how they got picked to take the ACT test, and so I was feeling left out. I can't believe I got picked, too!!!"

And off she goes...with the biggest grin on her face...while I remain standing in the kitchen, speechless.

I eventually look over at Hubby, who's also in a mild state of shock at this unexpected reaction.

"Well," I said. "That certainly went much better than expected. Certainly not the reaction I expected, but I'll take it."

So, there you go. A 13-year old who FIST-PUMPED at the prospect of taking the ACT test.

Seriously. Aliens. It's the only explanation.

Peace.