When Teresa started preschool this month, the big event necessitated a doctor appointment, a parent meeting and an open house to help her get acclimated to the classroom before the school year officially began. You’d think we were getting her ready for the beginning of a major phase of her life. Oh, that’s right, we were. Preschool — all nine hours a week of it — will lead into more intense preschool next year, then to kindergarten, the number grades including middle school, high school and on to college. It’s a process that I don’t expect will end until 2022, and maybe longer than that. So it is kind of a big deal. By the time she finishes with school, she will have gone from identifying letters of the alphabet to writing her name to reading great literature and writing her own stories and research papers. She will have gone from stacking and counting blocks to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; then algebra and geometry; and likely calculus. The little girl who built a house of plastic blocks at preschool open house could use the math skills she learns to build real houses when she grows up; who knows? At the same time, she will learn to make friends beyond playground playmates — friends to spend time with, to share secrets with, to hash out all the world’s problems. By the time she leaves school, she will likely have had her first romantic relationship, and if she hasn’t met the man she wants to marry, she’ll probably have a pretty good idea of what she’s looking for. There’s a reason we call these “formative years,” and much of the formation comes from teachers and other adult role models and peers. Caroline and Frank are still in their formative years, of course, but they have already started charting their courses. Caroline loves to act and sing, and is a gifted writer. She can do math — better than most kids, really — but would honestly probably prefer not to. Frank loves sports of all kinds, along with all of their statistics, and has begun asking what kinds of careers are open to people who major in math. He reads for fun, but not as voraciously as his older sister. Both are genuinely good people, kind and generous and unwilling to hurt anyone else, although it would likely embarrass them to hear me say so. I hope that Teresa learns those lessons well, and follows the examples of her brother and sister in that area; the way she apologizes with all the seriousness a 3-year-old can muster when she accidentally hurts someone, and the way she likes to make pretend cakes and other gifts for her family and friends (even the imaginary ones), give me hope. In terms of her academic career, we’ll have to wait and see.