I'd like to take the credit, but I can't

Madison is smart.  Darn-tootin' smart!  She is enrolled in 10th grade at the age of 14 and is doing well.  She is using the University of Nebraska's online high school curriculum and I like it since it will provide her with a high school transcript from an institution and she is held accountable for all of her work.  She takes tests thru a proctor here to ensure no cheating and must be self-motivated and diligent in her work. 

I would like to take credit for her innate smarts, but I can't.  In that area I must acknowledge that she gets her ample brain from her birth parents, Angela and Darryl.  Now each of them will argue that her smarts came from them, but either way, she's a smart cookie.  However, I digress.

All this means she'll graduate a year early.  While we have a plan for her gap year which includes traveling abroad and visiting friends in New Zealand, it really brings to light that the kid will be heading to college sooner than later.  HOW IN THE HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?  I've been looking at colleges on line and almost made a rosebud in my panties.  Hello?  The tuition's are hideous. 

Madison has always told me she wants to go Ivy League.  Harvard to be specific.  I honestly don't know if that will play out, but I've learned in regards to my children to never say never.  If she can get admitted, i suppose we'd do everything in our power to get her there.  She would like to be a veterinarian in addition to a Gran Prix dressage/ jumper equestrian.  Add all those words together and it equals........2 bazilliion, gazaillion, majillion dollars.

For all the days I've belly ached about my kids and homeschooling and my expanding waist line...or lack of a distinguishable one anymore...I'd reverse time and go backwards if I could.  Now I've got a kid who's actually earning high school credit (after skipping 9th grade altogether) and is beginning to look at colleges.  Whoever said that brilliant nugget of wisdom about having little kids=little problems and big kids=big problems....was a flippin' genius.  Thinking of my kid leaving home gets me giddy, and yet leaves me sick to think about her leaving the nest.  I also throw up in my mouth a little thinking about trying to pay for college for her, and the damn horse she wants to haul with her. 

How in the hell did I get to be old enough to have a kid old enough to be a sophomore, let alone the mother of a kid surfing the web for universities?  Dear God, I don't think I could wear one of those dippy shirts that says "Proud mom of a fill-in-the-blank college student!"  Hell, I still picture myself wearing my sorority sweatshirt, passing on food and choosing 'liquid' nourishment, and trying desperately to not get caught doing the walk of shame.  No, this can't be happening.  I refuse to be old enough to have a daughter in high school.  This is wrong.....all wrong.