Both of my daughters went to the same daycares and were blessed with some of the best preschool teachers in the area. I can not think of any of them that were bad. We loved them all, but one stood out and that was Teacher Jillian.

As I mention in my Testing Dillan’s DNA blog, Dillan went to the daycare at my work. I used to be able to watch her play from the window of my office. It was the greatest feeling in the world, having my daughter just steps away from my desk. I could pop in to get a hug anytime!

The first time I saw Jillian corralling children was from my office window and I could see that this teacher had a way with the kids. She wasn’t Dillan’s teacher but Dillan loved her. Dillan would walk over to her in the morning and smiling wide would way say, “Hi Teecha Jeall-e-ann”! Jillian would always drop what ever she was doing and come over to greet her back.

When my daughters were little, I did not leave them with teenage babysitters. Right away I knew Jillian would be a perfect babysitter for us so I asked her and she accepted. First time she came over our house Dillan looked star struck. It was like a celebrity had just walked into her house. She ran around the house yelling “Teecha Jeall-e-ann in my house”. I realized then little humans sometimes see teachers as celebrities. Madison loved Jillian so much that she would ask us to go out every weekend so Jillian could come over.

Jillian is from a small town in Southern California, not too far away from where Molly grew up. People from this area tend to be very mellow and kind. When I met Jillian’s parents,  I knew that the fruit didn’t fall too far away from the tree. When we decided to go to Europe last year, we asked Jillian to come with us. The arrangement was that we will pay for her trip expenses, and in return she would help with the girls. We had made a similar arrangement with Jaime when we went to Spain a couple of years back. Jillian accepted right away because she could also meet up with her parents who had recently moved to Europe for work. This really worked out for us because this was few months before Molly was diagnosed. She was not her usual energetic self on the trip and would get tired easily. Having Jillian’s help was God sent. Looking back I am amazed what a good sport Molly was given the disease her body was battling.

Few days after the trip, Jillian got engaged and moved to another state. Once again the girls lost another special caregiver. Jillian invited us to her wedding last July and we got to see her and some of the other preschool teachers. The girls were in heaven, Dillan kept photo bombing her favorite teachers. See if you can spot the photo bomber in this photo:

Below is my favorite picture of Jillian and Dillan. This was taken in a small town in South of France. Dillan was having a bad day, and Jillian had just offered her chocolate.