Why is almost 3 so hard?

The other title I thought of for this post was "Off the Deep End". Because lately my life feels like a combination of the two. For folks who haven't noticed, it is really hard to have an almost three year old. I don't know why, but it seems like she wants to test everything these days. Everything! And the questions come fast and repeated. If I have to answer "What day is today?" (followed quickly by its siblings "what day is tomorrow? what day comes next?") I am going to scream. Or if I have to read another Disney princess story, I am going to scream. Or look at another Disney princess sticker. I am sure that Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, Jasmine, and Aurora never suffered through having almost three year olds tell you that "I want to do NOTHING!" when you ask them to come and eat their lunch. They wouldn't be smiling so nicely, nor would they have such great looking hair.

Things have been hard around here of late, and in all fairness, it is not all due to Julia's growing pains. We started her back in daycare last week so that I could finish up my Seattle work and find a job. So that transition has been rough on her and me. And, for the folks who haven't noticed, it is really hard to find a job these days. Nobody in the Philadelphia metro area seems to want to hire a Ph.D. molecular biologist with a background in neuroscience and biophysics. Unless you have five years of industry experience. Or just a B.S. degree. But with Julia back in daycare I am feeling more pressure than ever to finish things up and find that full-time job again. See, I didn't plan on retiring when we moved here, but I also didn't count on the stock market crashing the first day of Dan's new job either. All of these things have combined into a major storm of stress swirling in my chest most days that makes me snap at my family and keeps me from sleeping at night.

We knew this was going to be a huge leap of faith to make this move, and so far it feels like it was a huge mistake. I miss my friends back in Seattle, I miss the weather, the city, just feeling like I knew where I was in life. I hope we can look back at it all in five years and laugh, but I am not seeing that clearly yet. Spring will be here soon, so I just keep telling myself that things will come to pass...winter will be over, Julia will soon turn three, and I'll figure out how to swim again.