A LETTER TO MY CHILD’S FIRST TEACHER

DEAR TEACHER WHO I DO NOT KNOW BUT AM SURE I WILL LOVE:

Please let my daughter sit beside a friend… at least for the first few days… even if they talk too much.

Please smile when she smiles at you.

Please look at the doodle she made when she was supposed to be listening and decide that she is creative.

Please take a deep breath when she forgets what she is supposed to be doing because there are lots of ideas spinning around in her head and sometimes things fall out. Her attention span is still a work-in-progress.

Please let her eat the store-bought cookies that she brought for snack without making any comments about healthier choices. They were just a special treat for the first week of school and she packed them herself, which was kind of a big deal. I promise that there will be apples and cheese strings in her future.

Please accept that at least one of her shoelaces will be untied at all times.

Please don’t decide that we are ‘one of those families’ just because I squeezed nine cell phone numbers onto the emergency contact form. Our family is big and crazy and we are all over the place but we will never leave her puking in a bucket in the secretary’s office. Someone will always come for her!

Please tell her that she is smart because it means more coming from a teacher.

Please don’t say ‘no’ or ‘later’ when she asks to go to the bathroom because she probably didn’t ask until it was almost too late and if you make her sit back down she will not ask again. And would you like to hold your pee in for hours? Just sayin’.

Please get her sense of humour.

Please let her leave the water bottle she brought from home on her desk because, frankly, the water from the school fountain frightens me. It is warm and smells like mud.

Please don’t ask me to chaperone the inevitable field trip to the Museum of Natural History. I can’t go there again. I just can’t.

Please be funny and interesting and kind… especially kind.

And please smile when she smiles at you. I know I said this before, but I think it is my most important wish, so it is worth repeating.