Education. Education. Education.

And so it begins... The quest to find the "right" school for Chase, and the "right" house in the "right" school district. And yes, I am on realtor.com every night.

First, I just can't believe we are actually going to have a house again. With our things in it. I am SO tired of furnished apartments. We haven't had our things around us in four years. FOUR YEARS. We have things still in boxes from when we lived in Boston. Unbelievable.

At any rate, in the past we really haven't given much thought to what school district our house was in, but now, I find myself obsessed with the public school system. But the more I research I do, the more interested in private education I become.

For example, there are five Montessori schools, one of which is bilingual (Spanish). Would I be a bad mom to stick her into yet another language (Spanish, Chinese, German)? Will I delay her language? So far, she's doing exceptionally well - with both English and Chinese. (I've also been told by a woman who studied early childhood education that kids compartmentalize languages, so exposing them to multiple languages may be a little confusing at first, but their brains will automatically sort words accordingly.)

I also stumbled across two international schools. The Denver International School, which offers bilingual classes in Mandarin (in grades 1 & 2, up to 80% is taught in Chinese), Spanish and French for kids from age 3, and the Bradley International Elementary School, which seems interesting.

Call me crazy, but I'm seriously considering we enroll her in the Spanish Montessori class M, W, F mornings and then do the Mandarin emersion T, Th and find a weekend playgroup. Or maybe vice versa, as Chinese is more difficult to learn and harder to find in Colorado.

I firmly believe language is one of the most important life skills a person can learn, alongside how to pick a lock and hotwire a car (kidding!). But in all seriousness, language opens so many doors, on so many levels. It connects you to the rest of the world, in a way that only knowing English never will.

And if you can speak three languages, there is a seriously cool summer job at the UN in Geneva you can apply for... no pressure, Chase!