My eldest child starts school tomorrow.

Tomorrow is ‘Orientation Day’.  He gets to put on a uniform and go and meet his teacher tomorrow, while we get the introductory meeting/meet the head teacher/this is how this place works so toe the line speech in the hall at the same time.

I am freaking with excitement for him. I was a huge fan of school at his age. Put my school uniform on everyday for a week before I was due to start, making my mom roll her eyes in exasperation at me and making me go and change so that she could iron my school dress *again* and hang it up in anticipation.

I am glad that times have changed and that I don’t have to send him in obnoxious teflon coated charcoal shorts and a tie, nope. Chino’s and golf shirts for this boy.

I am proud of hubby and I for having made the enormous budgetary sacrifices that we have already made, in order to send him there.

I am SO über proud of Skip getting *in* in the first place.

He must have knocked their socks off at the interview. (We got to wait in the staffroom while *they* interviewed *him*!  I already love a school that cares more about the child itself, than what they think the parents can do for them). Nice.

I promised myself that I would be fit and svelte again in time for his first sports day, (have to win that mothers race) and so if any of you know of any diets for quick weight loss then please pass them along!

I was SO excited, so pleased that my graphic design/photography/blogging pursuits have made a decent contribution to the household income, which enabled ME to take him to buy his uniform, his stationery and new lunchbox etc. ME. Not the hubby. No need to whip that card out. ME. (Pats self on back). People don’t realise what a total esteem meltdown motherhood can give you, when your income takes a dive the way mine did while I was a SAHM, before I became a WAHM.

There you are doing the hardest job in the world, and because it’s a totally unpaid position, you feel useless.

Anyway, back to my super dude.

Yes, he is young to be starting school.

4 and half to be precise.

His school is a private school that starts earlier than the local govt schools around here, and given the size of his intellect and the way that he hubby and I (neither of whom are short on intellect ourselves – if I may say so) look at each other repeatedly throughout the day and say, “Ok. Wow. Either global leader or evil genius, but either way, he’s going to make us look like the intellectual equivalent of fly larvae when he gets going.”  it’s for the best.

But here’s the thing.

I want to keep him wrapped up in his little monogrammed baby blanket forever.

For-ever.

I am not content with merely the memories of being able to hold him tight, in a tiny little bundle. I am so conscious of the fact that when I hug him now, that as tall as *I* am, I can no longer squeeze him into a tiny little ball.

He is all arms and legs and BOY.

Five seconds from now he will be a MAN, and I will be an old fart.

Life is cruel that way.

We *just* figure out who we are, and what we want, and where we’re going, when we have kids, only to show us how fast time is flying and that we really do NOT have forever.

So, as I must, I let them fly free.

Letting go a little each day.

Like a mother duck, from BBC’s Planet Earth, I let my ducklings go tumbling out of the nest.

First the one, then the other, eventually.

It’s time for them to learn to fly.

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Tags: children, Education, Parenting