It seems that after making one of the biggest decisions of our lives four years ago, it has been one big decision after another for Ramil and me. I just sealed another decision with a letter I submitted earlier today. It was a decision for a better family life, a decision to live a much simpler life than what we have right now.

In two months, Mateo’s yaya will be leaving us and this time, we don’t plan on getting another one. Hopefully, the decision to stay home once again will be more beneficial to Mateo, behavior-wise and health-wise. I am already thinking of the routine we will have, the activities we will do, and the (nearby) places we will go to. Hopefully in a few weeks’ time, his use of ‘po’ and ‘opo’ will be consistent almost 100% of the time, he will almost be completely toilet-trained, he will have mastered asking for things in the proper tone of voice.

I am not saying that staying in school with us was all bad for him. In fact, there’s a lot of good in it. He has learned to be more sociable, he practices his memory by knowing the names of everyone, he learns a lot of tricks from the students and the teachers, he gets to ‘read’ a lot of books in the library, he gets to play with a lot of children, and he gets exposed to the sights and sounds of a school.

However, he has never been more sick than in the past 10 months. He gets cough and/or cold almost every month because too many people want to kiss him or cuddle him. Despite having a really good yaya for him, I realize that I will never be satisfied unless I’m the one who’s with him most of the time. He now has small habits he developed because of the amount of time spent with his yaya, like whining if he wants something or talking in a loud voice and saying ‘hoy’.

The decision to go back to staying at home full-time is not easy because I love teaching. I love it so much it brings tears to my eyes thinking that I will never walk inside a classroom again as a teacher. It pains me that Mateo’s upbringing is something I am not willing to compromise and that it means letting go of something I love doing. I know it will be worth it. The reward will not be something that will fill my pockets but I know it’s something I will never regret.