School Uniform *blub*

There comes a time in every mothers life when their child prepares for their first day at school. I thought I had this covered seeing as I have done the 'first day' thing at nursery and at two preschools!

Wrong.

It seems that I am set for a big melt down come Monday when my eldest boy has his first day at big school.

Today, for the first time, I managed to get him into the WHOLE uniform. I am not ashamed to admit that it brought tears to my eyes!

He looked adorable and VERY grown up all of a sudden.

I'm not sure if the impending sadness is just of heart swelling pride though. I genuinely believe this could have something to do with my losing my child into 'the system' and the inevitable changes that he will go through of which I have little or no control.

I know he is ready for school. I know he needs to learn. My concern is the unsupervised access to other peoples complete little sod's who irrevocably will have an impact on my child's personality.

He is a sensitive lad. He is not dry completely. He still has a sleep through the day. He turned 4 a week ago and is the youngest child in the whole school from Monday.

How does my maternal protection instinct extend to during school hours without making a complete nuisance of myself or committing social suicide on behalf of my child?

I'm really not sure how to begin to process any of this mentally.

I am sitting here indulging in the last few days of my little boy before he begins his journey into a young man. I hope his caring, gentle, adventurous, sensitive, loving, cuddly, smoochy, yummy demeanour stays in there. Somewhere.

He has the ability to blossom into a wonderful young man. I hope nobody undoes all of my hard work.