Girls, boys, Speedy the hamster. First, I want to thank the coordinator for asking me to speak here this morning, an impromptu diversion, really, to keep you distracted long enough for your parents to quietly sneak out the back unnoticed. Eyes back up here please!
Let me start by congratulating each and every one of you on being dropped off to your very first full-day of preschool. You might not know it, but you’ve been on a waiting list to come here literally ever since you were a baby. I know you’ve been looking forward to big-kid school for quite some time now. And I know you all deserve a lot of credit because you’ve had to overcome some tough obstacles to get here – being potty trained for one. For many of you, potty training came down to the wire but you got through it with commitment, patience, hard work, a bag of M&Ms and a carpet steamer. You might not believe it now, but those very things will also help you get through college one day.
I’d like you to look to the child on your left, and now your right – by the end of this year, two of you will have eaten playdough. One of you will have found it delicious. I see a lot of new footwear among you, which probably means your parents just found out that you’ve been wearing shoes two sizes too small for a while now. That’s our bad. Mistakes happen. Now is probably a good time to lay that stone-cold wisdom on you.
Let me illustrate that point by sharing a memory from my first day at preschool. It was a long time ago – last century, in fact. I remember arriving at a big brick building on the other side of town and not wanting to leave the car. I cried as loud as I could and literally clutched onto the seat belt so hard that my mother gave up and drove me back home. Ironically, my first day of school didn’t involve being in school at all. The second day was like that, too. So was the third. Pretty soon, I began to wonder if I could make it all the way to Halloween. But eventually I adjusted to being in a classroom, and, by the end of the week, I didn’t want to leave.
I mention all of this because as you start your journey through school, you’ll learn that sometimes you’ll need to adjust also. Case in point: Just when you get used to coloring inside the lines, you’ll be asked to color without lines. Eventually, you won’t even use crayons anymore, but markers – and if you’re really good, one day you might even use something called gouache. It’s crazy, I know!
In conclusion, today is the first full day of the rest of your school lives. If you don’t get it perfect right away, don’t worry – you’ll have years to practice getting it right. Be patient. Share. Take good naps. Life is a journey, after all. Just try to stay away from the playdough.
Bruce Myint is an editor who lives in Larchmont.
