Can I just say, I’m really enjoying M’s age right now? I was just off of work for five days, and I never once felt like I was going to lose my shit with her. (The one time I felt my voice rising, she got very sad and it reminded me to dig up a little more patience.) Nowadays we can actually do things together at home, whether it’s watching or playing on a screen, or coming up with our own games. She will ask me, “Will you play with me?” and I find that it’s quite hard for me to say no. All too soon, she will stop asking me, preferring to be alone or with friends. So I’m going to savor it now! We play hide-n-seek, which is my favorite, because she is hilarious the way she hides her face and everything else is sticking out. Even when she does “hide”, she giggles as I look for her and calls out, “I’m over here!” I crack up the whole time.
We returned to the pool, this time together, for open swim. She kept asking about the teacher, telling me she would “listen”, but I kept reassuring her that he wasn’t coming, and that mommy was coming with her. We stayed in the pool for an hour and a half! She jumped, she swam independently with a floatie, she played with diving toys, and we even saw her “mom and tot” teacher (who she loves) and she was so happy to see her! The instructors doing life guard shifts asked who her private teacher had been, and when they found out they all made a face and said that he’s “not good with little kids”. Ok awesome. Oh well, live and learn.
Progress on Living our Travel Dream
I enrolled M in her preschool for fall, because it is a competitive program and I didn’t want to lose our place. I predict we’ll still be here in the fall, so perhaps we’ll start traveling after the holiday season. I did get a bunch of stuff done though:
- Paid for and scheduled two different certification exams/courses
- Set up phone interviews with three recruiters, the fourth I already like from her online discussion boards, so I have four agencies that I’m considering at this time
- Printed an extensive list of questions for each recruiter and agency so that I can compare their responses
- Made a list of hospitals I preferred in my cities of choice
- More reading, this time on private insurance vs. company insurance with a dependent
Woot! So excited for this future.
Mother of All Things 
I’ve been binge-reading your blog for a while and wanted to say that I think you’re a great mom. I’ve learned a lot from your determination to parent your daughter in the way that’s best for her, and not be influenced by other people’s opinions or disapproval. Props to you!
Wow thanks! I’m so flattered that anyone would find us this interesting!
I’m not surprised! Such determination to respect your children and figure out what’s truly best for them is, sadly, fairly rare in our day to day lives.