Forever Young--Not!

Maya started preschool summer camp last week as a prelude to full blown preschool, which begins August 24.

Trepidation is usually a parent’s province, as in will our daughter have a toddler nervous breakdown when Mommy or Daddy deposits her for her first day of school? Or, more importantly, will the separation anxiety leave me—the adult—emotionally and physically tattered?

Maya provided a rapid answer to our internal questions when she told Verna, after they’d been at preschool last Monday (August 3) for about two minutes, “You can go now.”

Maya might as well have added, “And don’t worry about coming back until I am 18.”

Yes, Maya, budding social butterfly, who smiles and hugs and laughs and embraces life with sublime abandon, is adjusting just fine to her new surroundings. After Day One her teacher told Verna, “Maya seems like she’s been here before.”

Just call her Adaptable Girl.

There she goes (again), holding onto her cloth lunch bag, a baseball cap atop her head, clad in a black Tim Lincecum t-shirt and her ubiquitous dog sweater, bouncing into the classroom with open arms and heart.

When she got there on Day One, she hugged AJ, our 3-year old neighbor who is ranked either first or second on the I Am Maya’s Boyfriend List, a rather long collection of toddler males that I will only tolerate for another few years at most.

She ate her entire sandwich at lunchtime, including her snack, fruit, and water. Then she came home and took a nap. Yesterday she was so excited after school that she met me on the stairs just to show me the art project she’d completed: a cuter than cute photo of her surrounded by a burst of bubbles inside a wooden frame she’d decorated with shiny stones.

She loves school and apparently school (and her friends and teachers) love her. So, in honor of my sweet, sweet daughter, who I DO want to grow up, I cite Bob Dylan’s Forever Young:

May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.
May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.