true love

Perhaps it would be more accurate to entitle this entry heartbreak. Six weeks ago, I met the love of my life. We have been attending daily swim lessons together and becoming better friends by the minute. We were so perfect together that the swim school created special classes so it would just be us two and the teacher. This was done also, in part, because we are superstars and they didn't want us swimming with the big kids who normally enroll at this level.

I knew it was true love because she swims as masterfully as I do. We both wanted to have children . . . but not until after we were doctors. Then she decided that she doesn't want to be a mother because it is too much work so I suppose I can raise our babies. I forgot to tell her that I had long ago decided to name my offspring Helen and Jasper. I should say that we both wanted to be doctors until we saw how fun it could be to teach swimming. Maybe we can drop our lofty ambitions to open a swim school. Then I met her dad and he wholeheartedly approves of me and he has convinced me to be an engineer. So many options.

Sadly, she is moving away this week. We will become penpals and NOT by e-mail or anything insincere like that; we will be real penpals and exchange old-fashioned love letters. Someday I will marry this girl.

The good news is that she and I can both swim 80 feet of freestyle and competitive backstroke. And now I am on a well-deserved hiatus from training.

preschool, part III

If you refer back to my blog post of February 25, 2012, you will read about my acceptance to the Montessori school that has/had the finest of reputations. Tragically, I found myself in the midst of a perfect storm this year: several classmates with significant unaddressed behavior issues, a new guide whose mentor was selling her short, and parents who were not adhering to the media policy. Toward the end of the school year, it was becoming increasingly obvious that staying there was too much of a gamble.

At just the right moment, a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (who we have still never met) swooped in to save me and, before I knew it, I was invited to interview at an even better school! Needless to say, on the day I interviewed, I was at my best. I charmed everyone from the front office staff to the founder/director and I was promptly offered the spot that every child in town desperately wants.

In the photo above, taken several days after my interview, I am returning my forms to my new NEW school. If I look a bit groggy, it's because I woke up at 4:30am eager to bake. We had our loaf of bread in the oven by 7:00. (Now I have to wonder why we didn't take any bread to share with the office staff at my new school.)

Now, I really do hope to stay in one place until the end of elementary school. The preschool admissions process has been grueling but for good reason: every one dollar spent on high quality preK education saves four when it comes time for college. This has been excellent practice though because quality preschools have a much lower acceptance rate (stalled around 2.3% in urban areas) than Harvard (5.8%). My application success rate was 100%.

Having said that, I do need to start applying for middle schools NOW. Wish me luck.