You may recall that we were still sorting out what exactly I would do while Andy stayed in D.C. for chemo. Well, that’s been resolved — this week I started work at a temporary assignment at Main State. In fact, I’m in the same office where I worked about a year ago this time for a few months before Mr. Flynn came along. A lot of the same people are still there too. It’s been an easy transition.

I feel very lucky that both post and the Africa Bureau have been so understanding and accommodating about making this happen. They very well could have ordered me back on a plane to Benin pronto. In fact, they could have never let me come to D.C. with Andy for his tests in the first place. But they did, and I think that says a lot about recent efforts to make the State Department more family friendly.

It’s funny — today there was a post on the Sounding Board, the State Department’s virtual “suggestion box,” about the difficulty of the medevac process. Perhaps I’m jinxing things because we’re still in the middle of it, but so far we’ve found the process very transparent and everyone we’ve worked with understanding and accomodating. Is our experience unique?

Our biggest problem at the moment is that Flynn’s found a new favorite toy: my State Department ID. Can baby slobber and two tiny teeth demagnetize a State badge? I’ll let you know.