we are ready!

So this week my baby girl had her first experience of "Big School"...
Wide eyed she approached the traditional old building, gazing up up up to the high bell tower standing proudly against the bright blue summer sky.   Barely able to contain her excitement as she peered in through the big oak doors she prompted many a smile from the nervously entering mums by crying out "Mummy mummy, is that Big School in there??"
She gripped my hand tightly as we found her new classroom, and then in the bumbling crowds of unfamiliar mums and shyly curious little ones, she slipped from my fingers and was gone...I looked, slightly anxiously, between the plaits and many eager eyes for that little slip of a piece of me that I know so well... and eventually I spotted her, doing the rounds, touching everything with keen fingers, locating and categorising the different tools of childhood, landing on the globe on the teachers desk with enthusiasm.
Around her bobbing head there were tearful eyes, sobbing little people gripping their mummies tightly...tight faced mothers edging backwards reluctantly... Not us though.  "Bye Mummy" she called, only turning back to benevolently give in to my pleading for a kiss goodbye.
I hovered, peeped, toured the school, met the P&C and shelled out wads of cash for terribly unattractive and over-sized school uniforms.
Meanwhile I caught glimpses of her jumping through rainbow hoops, assembling unfamiliar puzzles, weaving her way out of childhood and into Big Girl World.
At the end I opened my arms to my beaming angel and I stepped into the new role - that of the mother collecting her child from school, desperate to know all about their day, eager to share the wonder, to uncover the secrets of all that we miss out on in the mysterious land of the school room. And at the end there were the tears.  Not for us the reluctant holding onto Mummy and childhood...No.  My angel sat by the roadside on the way to the car and sobbed.  "But Mummy, I miss Big School!  I want to stay here NOW....Why can't I stay at big school??"
She is ready.  Now I just have to catch up.