It’s nice to have your opinion of your child verified by other people. Now that she’s in school, we can get feedback from real professionals. And if you think spending your whole day in a room full of two year olds doesn’t take a professional, than I suggest you try it.

Abigail is taking to school really well and her teachers are very impressed with her, particularly her verbal skills. She is able to have a conversation, pay attention and follow along very easily. And open doors. I’m sure they love that.

But her napping ability, not so much. She hasn’t slept at school once yet. The upshot of that is we get back an extremely excited, overstimulated toddler who is running wildly along the jagged precipice of exhausted madness. Today she had a bit of a meltdown before bed. Half of what made her so mad was that we were asking her to do something – anything – different from what she was doing. The other half was that she didn’t at all like whatever it was that she was doing.

I was giving her a bath in the middle of this, attempting to wash her hair, when she turned to me, mid-tantrum and said, crying, “I need some space, Daddy!”

And she really did. I backed off – after negotiating with her for the release of the remaining shampoo in her hair – and for a few minutes she was calmer.

The point I’m trying to make is that we’re pretty spoiled. She’s able to communicate with us and make her feelings clear, even when it’s something more complex, like “needing space.” And she’s able to calm down and listen, to the point where she can deal with hair rinsing mid-tantrum.

I’m just saying, she’s awesome.